Tallyman

Oh Rabbie Burns you might have gone
to the sugar-land of plenty
and who’s to say you’d not have been
a strutting man so kenty
making a bonny living there
upon the backs of slaves who stooped
and struggled with the weight
that bought them early graves?

The beauty of the red, red rose
must wither in the heat
the sweetness of the laverock’s tune
must fade beneath the beat
of Africa in broken hearts
that could no longer take
the high road or the low road
as the dawn began to break.

Their only choice a skelping sun
or a tawse against the skin.
If you’d been there would you have cried
their labour was a sin?
Would you have winched a tidy lass
who couldn’t answer no
though dark defiance in her eyes
was proof that it was so?
 
Oh Rabbie, sad as it may be
that you died before your prime
“A man’s a man for aw that”
and you said it for all time.