---
title: "Epistle to James Tennant of Glenconner"
author: "Robert Burns"
form: "Poem"
year: "1789"
location: "Ellisland"
source: "Project Gutenberg #1279 — Poems and Songs of Robert Burns"
source_url: "https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/1279/pg1279.txt"
canonical_url: "https://robert-burns.com/poems/epistle-to-james-tennant-of-glenconner/"
---

# Epistle to James Tennant of Glenconner

## Poem
Auld comrade dear, and brither sinner,  
How’s a’ the folk about Glenconner?  
How do you this blae eastlin wind,  
That’s like to blaw a body blind?  
For me, my faculties are frozen,  
My dearest member nearly dozen’d.  
I’ve sent you here, by Johnie Simson,  
Twa sage philosophers to glimpse on;  
Smith, wi’ his sympathetic feeling,  
An’ Reid, to common sense appealing.  
Philosophers have fought and wrangled,  
An’ meikle Greek an’ Latin mangled,  
Till wi’ their logic-jargon tir’d,  
And in the depth of science mir’d,  
To common sense they now appeal,  
What wives and wabsters see and feel.  
But, hark ye, friend! I charge you strictly,  
Peruse them, an’ return them quickly:  
For now I’m grown sae cursed douce  
I pray and ponder butt the house;  
My shins, my lane, I there sit roastin’,  
Perusing Bunyan, Brown, an’ Boston,  
Till by an’ by, if I haud on,  
I’ll grunt a real gospel-groan:  
Already I begin to try it,  
To cast my e’en up like a pyet,  
When by the gun she tumbles o’er  
Flutt’ring an’ gasping in her gore:  
Sae shortly you shall see me bright,  
A burning an’ a shining light.

My heart-warm love to guid auld Glen,  
The ace an’ wale of honest men:  
When bending down wi’ auld grey hairs  
Beneath the load of years and cares,  
May He who made him still support him,  
An’ views beyond the grave comfort him;  
His worthy fam’ly far and near,  
God bless them a’ wi’ grace and gear!

My auld schoolfellow, Preacher Willie,  
The manly tar, my mason-billie,  
And Auchenbay, I wish him joy,  
If he’s a parent, lass or boy,  
May he be dad, and Meg the mither,  
Just five-and-forty years thegither!  
And no forgetting wabster Charlie,  
I’m tauld he offers very fairly.  
An’ Lord, remember singing Sannock,  
Wi’ hale breeks, saxpence, an’ a bannock!  
And next, my auld acquaintance, Nancy,  
Since she is fitted to her fancy,  
An’ her kind stars hae airted till her  
gA guid chiel wi’ a pickle siller.  
My kindest, best respects, I sen’ it,  
To cousin Kate, an’ sister Janet:  
Tell them, frae me, wi’ chiels be cautious,  
For, faith, they’ll aiblins fin’ them fashious;  
To grant a heart is fairly civil,  
But to grant a maidenhead’s the devil.  
An’ lastly, Jamie, for yoursel,  
May guardian angels tak a spell,  
An’ steer you seven miles south o’ hell:  
But first, before you see heaven’s glory,  
May ye get mony a merry story,  
Mony a laugh, and mony a drink,  
And aye eneugh o’ needfu’ clink.

Now fare ye weel, an’ joy be wi’ you:  
For my sake, this I beg it o’ you,  
Assist poor Simson a’ ye can,  
Ye’ll fin; him just an honest man;  
Sae I conclude, and quat my chanter,  
Your’s, saint or sinner,  
Rob the Ranter.

---

Source: [Project Gutenberg #1279 — Poems and Songs of Robert Burns](https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/1279/pg1279.txt)  
Canonical HTML: https://robert-burns.com/poems/epistle-to-james-tennant-of-glenconner/