Dear sober emptyers o' the glass!
Behold your goddess - wife or lass,
De'il hae me gin I ken;
But weel I wat gin a' be true
That here she speaks, ye select few
Are unco kind o' men

To me (as frankly in a crack
The ither night the jillet spak
Right cheery owre a glass.)
Though hid frae unpoetic brain,
These hieroglyphics speak as plain
As e'er did Balaam's ass.

Ilk sober brither sure has seen
The moon and seven stars at e'en
Glittering in spangled heaven;
What mean then sax? - the meaning's clear.
Through a' your meetings in the year
Ye're fou sax times in seven.

Yet mair - by yonder horned moon,
Its clear ye're a' hornmad as soon
As clocks Beate fix;
Sweet, sweet the sounding warning comes!
And sitting down on stubborn bums
Ye a' turn - lunatics.

O! then, 'tis said, in canty croon,
A writer chiel ca'd Livingston
Wi' crack and snuff grows cheery;
And dealing round strong punch and joke,
Good-humour'd mad near twa o'clock
Turns a' things tapsilteery!

Here wad I stap, nor langer keek
Into thae soberings ilka week,
And hide what I'm no able;
But yon d--'d fingers - up and down,
Proclaim whan some are in the moon,
Some lie aneth the table.

In these bless'd French perverted days,
Whan virtue's blam'd and vice gets praise,
And folk wi' words are sae bit.
Nae wonder sober stands for fou,
And drinkers roar out while they spew,
'Virtus Tandem Vicebat.'