Celebrating the 250th aniversary of Robert Burns with an excerpt from his poem ‘The Vision’. Where he doubts his ability and is visited by the Muse, the source of inspiration for creative artists, who knocks some sense into him.
…
There, lanely by the ingle-cheek,
I sat and ey’d the spewing reek,
That fill’d, wi’ hoast-provoking smeek,
The auld clay biggin;
An’ heard the restless rattons squeak
About the riggin.
All in this mottie, misty clime,
I backward mus’d’ on wasted time,
How I had spent my youthfu’ prime,
An’ done nae thing,
But stringing blethers up in rhyme,
For fools to sing.
Had I to guid advice but harkit,
I might, by this, hae led a market,
Or strutted in a bank and clarkit
My cash-account;
While here, half-mad, half-fed, half-sarkit.
Is a’ th’ amount.
I started, mutt’ring, “blockhead! coof!”
And heav’d on high my waukit loof,
To swear by a’ yon starry roof,
Or some rash aith,
That I henceforth wad be rhyme-proof
Till my last breath-
Translate:
waukit: calloused, hard-worked.
![[no wise spelled out in the phonetic alphabet.]](/comics/phonetics/waukitph.gif){kind=small}
Celebrate: How often do we have doubts about our creative abilities? – Celebrate them. – “don’t settle just to be good but rather strive to be good for something.” E Cayce.
The Scottish Word: waukit with its definition and its meaning illustrated and captioned with the word used in context in the Scots language and in English.