Breathes there the Man with Soul so dead

Come an worship at the altar
O thon skeelie screiver Walter
Teller o hairt grippin tales
Some write tadpoles, he wrote whales

Marmion, Guy Mannering
The Antiquary, Kenilworth
Writer’s block wisnae his problem
Niver had o wirds a dearth

Antiques Roadshow filmed a programme
There, at Abbotsford, Scott’s hame
Here, the Lay of the Last Minstrel
Added tae Auld Wattie’s fame

Big Screen moguls flashed their siller
Rob Roy, a la Hollywood
Ivanhoe, box office winner
Wi its tales o Robin Hood

Wattie Scott, War journalist
Screived o the Field o Waterloo
Larnt o Demonology
An witchcraft that wid gar ye grue

Maister o the Horror Story
Wanderin Willie’s Tale is thrang
Wi the eildritch an the oorie
Stappit wi the coorse, the wrang

P.R. man fur Caledonia
Fand the Scots Regalia
Fin King George cam north tae Embro
Scott claithed him like a tartan baa

Veesit Scotland, he’s a treisur
Waverley, reels tourists in
Bi the station and the story
Tae Heart of Mid-Lothian

Crufts? Thank Scott fur Dandie Dinmounts
Stinch an hudderie, like himself!

Minstrel o the Scottish Border
Penned the supernatural

Collector o the weird, the fey
Biographer o Buonaparte
Sic a rowth o virr an smeddum
In thon Border wizard’s hairt!