Page:Elegy on the year eighty-eight.pdf/4

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ELEGY

on

PUDDIN LIZZIE*.[1]

She's gane! she's gane!—o'er true the tale!
She's left us a' to sab an' wail!—
Auld Clatterbanes has hit the nail
Upon the head:
De'il! o' his carcase mak' a flail,
Since Lizzie's dead!

O Death! O Death! thou'rt void o' feelin',
For wi' thy deidly whittle stealin'
Thro' gentle hald, or hamely shealin'
Wi divet riggin',
Thou sends the best o' bodies reelin'
To their cauld biggin'!

Hadst thou but seized wi' thy claw
A Lord—a Duke—or baith the twa!—
The skaith, I trow, wad been sae sma'
Ane might forgi'e ye;
But Lizzie thus to steal awa',
O wae be ti' ye!

  1. Lizzie Weatherston, the subject of the present Elegy, was a well-known character, who for many years kept a little change-house at Jock's Lodge in the immediate neighbourhood of Edinburgh, and, from a peculiar method she had of making Scotcb puddings, had obtained the name of Puddin' Lizzie. Her house was long the favourite resort of many of the young people in and about Edinburgh, which inclined to an innocent homely frolic. She died in 1796.