PREACHER RANDY AGAIN
I’m done for now – clean trade at last,
Stripped bare tae ilka tirllin’ blast
That sweeps misfortune’s glen,
My awkward muse has ta’en the fiel’s,
An’ left the pad whar virtue speils
Amang my fellow-men.

The footherin’ jade, that is my death,
Unused tae oucht but ploughman’s greath,
Wull nae entreatys bide;
Whune’er she sees the gallin’ bit
O’ local upstart hyprocite,
Or self-inflated guide.

I try betimes to haud her in,
But just as sure as I begin,
Some apostolic sage,
Wae upturned e’en in holy glare
Invites the world tae see him there,
Which puts her in a rage.

By these you’d think o’or earth was young,
An’ they the only worth that swing
Their hats on nature’s peg;
Forgetting that the common fry
A bleeze may see to ken them by
Through a’ their lectures gleg.

Truth aye bit hard wae sage or cheel
I’m sure the very ancient de’el
Wull own the crude remark;
If, therefore, we increase its growth
By blawin aff the barmy froth,
A fig for Randy’s bark.

He may pick jackstones in the stream,
An’ drive his shootin’ sling wae steam
For onything we care,
But brainless, undiluted hash
Wun roon wae mangey, doggerel trash,
A reading public spare.

Cullybackey Auld Nummer, 4th March 1893