XXXVIII AY not of me that weakly I declined SA The labours of my sires, and fled the sea, The towers we founded and the lamps we lit, oa ou } OW = TABLE OF COMMON SCOTTISH VOWEL SOUNDS. open A as in rare. AW as in law. open E as in mere, but this with exceptions, as heather-heather, wean open E as in mere. open O as in more. doubled O as in poor. OW as in bower. u= doubled O as in poor. ui or û before R (say roughly) open A as in rare. ui or ü before any other consonant (say roughly) close I as in grin. y i open I as in kite. pretty nearly what you please, much as in English. Heaven guide the reader through that labyrinth! But in Scots it dodges usually from the short I, as in grin, to the open E, as in mere. Find and blind, I may remark, are pronounced to rhyme with the preterite of grin. THE MAKER TO POSTERITY 'AR 'yont amang the years to be FA When a' we think, an' a' we see, An' a' we luve, 's been dung ajee By time's rouch shouther, An' what was richt and wrang for me That some ane, ripin' after lear- May find an' read me, an' be sair "What tongue does your auld bookie speak?" He'll spier; an' I, his mou to steik: "No bein' fit to write in Greek, I wrote in Lallan, Dear to my heart as the peat reek, "Few spak it then, an' noo there's nane. My puir auld sangs lie a' their lane, Their sense, that aince was braw an' plain, Like runes upon a standin' stane "But think not you the brae to speel; An' things are mebbe waur than weel "The hale concern (baith hens an' eggs, The tack o' mankind, near the dregs, "Your book, that in some braw new tongue, Whan the hale planet's guts are dung "An' you, sair gruppin' to a spar Hame, France, or Flanders- |