A cheerful honest-hearted clown I will prefer before you, O.

The stress laid upon that part of Burns's production which has
relation, near or remote, to his personal experiences with women is,
in the current estimate, somewhat disproportionate. A surprisingly
large number of his most effective songs are purely dramatic, are
placed in the mouth of a man who is clearly not the poet, or, more
frequently, in the mouth of a woman. There is little evidence that
Burns would have been capable of sustained dramatic composition; on
the other hand, he was far from being limited to purely personal lyric
utterance. His versatility in giving expression to the amorous moods
of the other sex is almost as great as in direct confession. A group
of these dramatic lyrics will demonstrate this.


O FOR ANE AN' TWENTY, TAM!

An' O for ane an' twenty, Tam!
An' hey, sweet are an' twenty, Tam!
I'll learn my kin a rattlin' sang, [teach]
An' I saw ane an' twenty, Tam. [If]

They snool me sair, and haud me down, [snub, sorely, hold]
An' gar me look like bluntie, Tam! [make, a fool]
But three short years will soon wheel roun',
An' then comes ane an' twenty, Tam.

A gleib o' lan', a claut o' gear, [portion, handful of money]
Was left me by my auntie, Tam;
At kith or kin I need na spier, [ask]