Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Scotland: Vols. VI–VIII. 1876–79.

Kyle

Coila

By Robert Burns (1759–1796)

(From Epistle to William Simson)

The district of Kyle, personified under the appellation of Coila. Burns afterwards assumed Coila as the name of his Muse.

AULD Coila now may fidge fu’ fain,

She ’s gotten poets o’ her ain,

Chiels wha their chanters winna hain,

But tune their lays,

Till echoes a’ resound again

Her weel-sung praise.

Nae poet thought her worth his while,

To set her name in measured style;

She lay like some unkenned-of isle

Beside New Holland,

Or whare wild-meeting oceans boil

Besouth Magellan.

Ramsay and famous Fergusson

Gied Forth and Tay a lift aboon;

Yarrow and Tweed, to monie a tune,

Owre Scotland rings;

While Irwin, Lugar, Ayr, and Doon,

Naebody sings.

Th’ Illissus, Tiber, Thames, and Seine,

Glide sweet in monie a tunefu’ line;

But, Willie, set your fit to mine,

And cock your crest,

We ’ll gar our streams and burnies shine

Up wi’ the best!

We ’ll sing auld Coila’s plains and fells,

Her moors red-brown wi’ heather-bells,

Her banks and braes, her dens and dells,

Where glorious Wallace

Aft bure the gree, as story tells,

Frae southron billies.

At Wallace’ name what Scottish blood

But boils up in a spring-tide flood!

Oft have our fearless fathers strode

By Wallace’ side,

Still pressing onward, red-wat shod,

Or glorious died!

O, sweet are Coila’s haughs and woods

When lintwhites chant amang the buds,

And jinkin’ hares, in amorous whids,

Their loves enjoy,

While through the braes the cushat croods

With wailfu’ cry!

Even winter bleak has charms to me,

When winds rave through the naked tree;

Or frosts on hills of Ochiltree

Are hoary gray;

Or blinding drifts wild furious flee,

Darkening the day!