TO A LOUSE

ON SEEING ONE ON A LADY'S BONNET AT

CHURCH 

Ha! whare ye gaun, ye crowlin ferlie?
Your impudence protects you sairly,
I canna say but ye strunt rarely
Owre gauze and lace,
Tho' faith! I fear ye dine but sparely
On sic a place.

[By the way, "crowlin" means crawling, "ferlie" means wonder and "strunt" means swagger.]

This is the first of the eight verses of Robert Burns' lovely and very funny poem "TO A LOUSE".
From "Poems and Songs of Robert Burns, edited and introduced by James Barke, Collins 1953,
page 137. In the last verse we find the famous lines:

I wad some Power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!

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