The Heron Ballads Wham Will We Send To London - Analysis

A drinking-song that doubles as a democratic dare

This ballad is a campaign chant, but its real target is the whole idea that Scotland’s political voice should be managed by rank, money, or fashionable connections. Burns keeps asking Wham will we send as if the answer ought to be obvious: the person with worth and sense, not the person with a title. The repeated refrain For a’ that works like a stubborn shrug—whatever medals, ribbons, or pedigrees people flaunt, the poem insists those things don’t change the basic measure of a representative.

The central claim is blunt: send the “independent” man you know—Heron—because Parliament should answer to character, not hierarchy. Even when the poem flatters its candidate, it does so by defining him against the usual system: The independent Patriot, The Honest Man, and later An independant Commoner who must bear the gree (take the prize).

Kirkcudbright’s open gate versus London’s closed rooms

The poem builds local credibility as a kind of moral proof. The speaker points to Kirouchtree’s open yett (an open gate) and treats it as evidence that Heron is accessible and known. That openness matters because the destination—London town, Parliament—suggests distance, power, and back-room dealing. In that contrast, the open gate becomes more than a detail of place: it’s a political ethic. The best representative is the one people have actually met and therefore can judge.

This local grounding also lets Burns mock the idea that status automatically equals fitness. The poem keeps circling the same question—who best deserves to “fa’ that”—as if merit is a public thing, witnessed and agreed upon, not something conferred by courtly approval.

Satire as a weapon: lords, ribbons, and the “lousy loun”

The tone is boisterous, teasing, and increasingly aggressive, and the mockery is aimed upward. Burns refuses deference: To paughty Lordlings shall we jouk (bow) is posed as a ridiculous option, especially when it’s against the law—a reminder that even legal order can be threatened by social intimidation. Then comes the poem’s most corrosive move: it separates the glitter of rank from the reality of the person wearing it. A lord may be a gowk (fool), even sprung frae kings; worse, a titled man can be a lousy loun even with ribband, star attached.

That’s the poem’s key contradiction and its driving energy: it praises “worth” as if society recognizes it, while showing a society that often rewards the opposite. The refrain’s insistence—Here’s Heron yet—sounds a bit like pushing back against an expected defeat, as if the speaker knows how strong the pressure of rank can be.

Money, patronage, and the threat of being treated like livestock

Midway through, the poem sharpens from satire into something closer to outrage. A beardless boy arrives with uncle’s gowd, a neat image of political advancement as inheritance and purchase rather than achievement. Against that, the speaker argues for ane frae ‘mang oursels, A man we ken: community knowledge versus imported money.

The insult that follows is telling: We are na to the market come, not like nowt and naigs (cattle and nags). Here the poem names the fear underneath the joking—being bought, driven, and traded. The later line bought and sauld makes the same point in harsher terms. So while the poem celebrates independence, it also admits the reality of corruption; it imagines the electorate standing at the edge of a marketplace where votes can be priced.

The turn into open scolding—and then a communal toast

The final stanzas pivot into direct naming and chastisement. If the people must be knaves and fools, the speaker says, don’t let it be done by A truant callan (a runaway schoolboy). The contempt here isn’t only for elite manipulation; it’s for a shallow, juvenile kind of candidate—politics as boyish entitlement. The jab at Master Dicky—promising him A gird and stick—turns electoral rivalry into moral discipline, as if the wrong candidate deserves corporal correction more than debate.

Then the bracketed closing becomes a ritual of solidarity: Then let us drink to the Stewartry and to Kirochtree’s Laird. The mood shifts from attack to affirmation, and the poem imagines a Parliament improved by example: A House o’ Commons such as he would be a sight worth seeing. That ending is optimistic, but it’s an optimism earned through confrontation: Burns doesn’t pretend the system is clean; he demands, loudly and locally, that it could be better—if the people refuse to “jouk” and refuse to be sold.

One sharp question the poem won’t let go

If a community has to insist For a’ that so many times, what does that suggest about the world they’re living in? The refrain sounds celebratory, but it also sounds defensive—like a chant meant to hold its ground against Lordlings, gowd, and the quiet force of prestige. The poem’s bravado may be the very sign of how hard it is to keep political independence from being turned into a market.