POEM OF THE DAY

James Hogg, Robert Burns’s younger contemporary, is probably best known for that depiction of the dark dichotomy of the Scottish character, The Confessions of a Justified Sinner. What could be further in tone than his warm account of his favourite little daughter? A timeless celebration of parental affection.

FROM A BARD’S ADDRESS TO HIS YOUNGEST DAUGHTER

Come to my arms my wee wee pet My mild my blithesome Harriet

The sweetest babe art though to me That ever sat on parent’s knee.

Thou hast that eye was mine erewhile Thy mother’s blithe and graceful smile And such a playful merry vein

That greybeards smile at pranks of thine

And if aright I read thy mind

The child of nature thou’rt designed While even while yet upon the breast Can’st cry like Moggy o’er her book

And crow like cock and caw like rook Boo like a bull and blare like ram

And bark like dog and bleat like lamb And when abroad in pleasant weather Thou minglest all these sounds together

Then who can say, thou happy creature, Thou’rt not the very child of nature?

How dar’st thou frown, thou freakish fey,

And pout and look the other way? Why turn thy chubby cheeks athraw And skelp the beard of thy papa? I know full well thy deep design

’Tis to turn back thine eye on mine With triple burst of joyful glee

And fifty strains at mimicry

What wealth from nature may’st thou won

With pupilage so soon begun.

Well, hope is all; thou art unproved, The bard’s and nature’s best beloved. And now above thy brow so fair

And flowing films of flaxen hair

I lay my hand once more and frame A blessing in the holy name

Of that supreme divinity

Who breathed a living soul in thee.