Below
are the full 23 verses of the Immortal Memory, composed by John Aberdein,
for the Burns Night celebrations in North Ronaldsay
O
Rab, let me begin this lay,
Like billions babblin throu your day,
Fae Auchinleck tae Mandalay
Ye’ll hear us blether,
As tho we were the bairns o thocht –
And ye the faither.
I’m
glad it’s Burns, nae New Year’s E’en,
Or they’d hae us jig by the licht o the meen,
Some caper roon the auld Stan Stane –
Ma back’s disjeskit –
And a selkie’s oot an gotten
Ma sealskin weskit!
Ye
ken the feck o us are sots,
Tho some are posher, Burnsian swots,
Would tie your pedigree in knots,
Bile doon your oeuvre –
Tae pruve ye were at hinmaist bocht
By royal Han-over.
Ye
knuckled nane tae a wheen mad Georges,
Had nae time for sic gypes or gorgeous –
Kent freedom only doth enlarge us,
Be we Muir or Swannay,
As freedom keeps fine Scotts rechargèd
In Rinansay.
Nae
that ye crossed ony wattir,
Were Scot-land’s bard, and nae sea-auteur,
Like witch on brig ye feared ye’d stotter,
Sae sailed nae lenth
For North Isles clapshot, spoots,
Nor créme de menthe.
Or
fancy Borean brew mair likely,
Carlsberg, strang and non-recycly,
Hale crates o Specky summoned weekly
In days of yore –
A beach o bashit archaeology,
The auld Green Shore.
The
sea ye thocht gey ill tae conter,
Ye’d leave her aa tae whale an dunter,
Better the de’il ye ken than wander
Throu roost an motion:
The human hert a bigger foont
Nor ony ocean.
An
as for fleein ye wadna dare,
In braw balloon or Loganair,
Like louse on high in a fine Lunar-di bonnet –
Tae flee yirsel, as ithers flee,
Ye’d sune bemoan it.
Thon
kind o poet that hides in attic,
Wi dribbly pen and will erratic,
Ye never were, but aye emphatic,
Wi few digresses:
Yours was the mode full an dramatic -
Odes an addresses.
Some
critics short on basic savvy,
(An usefu as a Sule Stack cabby),
This stanza ca the Standard Habbie
Howe’er it turns,
Tonight let’s cry it the Super Rabbie,
Its apex Burns.
As
for thae Edinburgh literati,
The unco smooth, an creesh an catty,
There’s nae a one but was a tattie
Green i’ the sun
Wi envy o APOLLO’S pooers
In Fairmin’s son.
Against
Decorum’s pride an faults,
The fol-de-rols o rulin cults,
An aa the sneers, an snide insults
Upon your station,
Ye spoke o man’s Equality
Like REVELATION.
O
poet fantastic an surreal,
Aye mindfu o the Commonweal,
Wha soared in sangs that mak us feel
Oor fears an joy;
Broken on Fairmin’s bitter wheel
Like landlaird’s toy.
Speakin
o landlairds an sic Traills,
Ye’d be gled the wind’s noo oot their sails,
An aa the guid black grund they’d parcel
For private profit:
In Haly Rude they ruled this week
There’s nae need for it.
Feddin
twa-three kye is hard eneuch,
Draain tang ower dykes is sair an teuch,
Haulin creels these days a hollow lauch
For conger, whulk;
Ae decent cod ye barena hook
They’re fished oot, bulk.
Wad
ye were here, the warld hath need,
Ye’d satirise their bauld-faced greed,
When Bleezin Bush an Holy Tony lead
The New World Order –
For Conned-oil-eeza pRice they’d seed
Cycles o murder.
Ye
fair spake oot, ye helped the French,
Wha gave their kings a monkey-wrench,
Sent cannon oot wioot a blench
(Nae muckle ken it),
Afore repression came, an stench
O bayonet.
Whaur
got ye thaim? By serendipity,
While ye were at the excise nippy,
Ye seized upon a smugglin shippie
An bocht fower cannon –
An sent them oot tae the fowk o France
There was royal ban on.
Since
then there’s been a gey attempt,
To say your later verses limped,
The Muse o Liberty by ye unkempt,
Ye wrote on flooers;
But Hogg has pruved your star undimm’d
Against false pooers.
A
Man’s a Man was written at the last,
Against the unjust order sicna blast
Maks sure the warld will never fast
On Burns’s birthday,
Till each coorse Empire’s chains are cast
Furth an awa.
Now
music o this nicht shall mellow
Fae Ae Fond Kiss tae Strip the Willow,
Baith piper’s lungs an fiddler’s elbow
Oor joy unfurl;
An, like a kinder place nor Tam did see,
The rafters dirl.
Rab,
in a blink ye’ll get your fairin,
First thank our hosts, the folk whose carin
Has drawn us in this island here
Warm an thegither;
We’d be prood for aye gin ye stood amang’s
A vera brither.
Each
thinks on the Bard as the mind pleases.
That glowe in the gless is the soul’s furnace!
An noo let’s staun –
An tak oor turns, as
Friens, I gie ye the Immortal Memory –
O Rabbie Burns.
