Her walie nieves like midden-creels, [ample fists, dung baskets]
Her face wad fyle the Logan-water; [dirty]
Sic a wife as Willie had,
I wad na gie a button for her!

The songs written by Burns in connection with politics are often
lively and pointed, but they have little imagination, and the passing
of the issues they dealt with has deprived them of general interest.
Two classes of exceptions may be noted. He was, as we have seen,
sympathetically interested in the French Revolution, and the
fundamental doctrine of Liberty, Fraternity, Equality was cast by him
into a poem which, he himself said, is "not really poetry," but is
admirably vigorous rhetoric in verse, and has become the classic
utterance of the democratic faith.


A MAN'S A MAN FOR A' THAT

Is there for honest poverty
That hings his head, an' a' that? [hangs]
The coward slave, we pass him by,
We dare be poor for a' that!
For a' that, an' a' that,
Our toils obscure, an' a' that;
The rank is but the guinea's stamp;
The man's the gowd for a' that. [gold]

What tho' on hamely fare we dine,
Wear hodden-gray, and a' that; [coarse gray]
Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine, [Give]