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A lighthearted translation of Address to a Haggis that we prepared for our 4th annual Burns Night. We deliver it alongside the original Scots address during the parade of the haggis.
Good luck to you, with your honest, plump face,
Grandest of the sausages!
Above them all you take your place,
Stomach, entrails, or intestines (hopefully heavily spiced):
Well are you worthy of a mock-epic poem
And a long one, too.
You overflow the plate,
Your buttocks like a distant hill;
Your penis big enough to mend a mill
If we need have to;
While through your pores the dews distill
Like sweet, sweet scotch.
He takes out and wipes his dirty knife,
And slices you open, right quick,
bursting your glistening entrails
Like a ditch;
And then, oh damn,
the odor hits!
Then spoon for spoon, they compete for your meat,
'Devil take the last one,' they struggle,
Till they sit back and pat their swollen bellies
Tight as drums;
Then the host, almost bursting,
Farts and smiles.
But, who’s that eating French food,
Stomach-free fare that would sicken a pig,
Or fricassee that would make her throw-up
A lot,
Looks down with a sneering, scornful face
On this feast?
Poor devil! see him over his trash,
Blood-less and skinny like a reed,
His legs are as thin as a whip,
His fist is the size of a walnut:
He is certainly not fit to fight a long, bloody war.
Oh no!
But mark the ham-fisted and energetic Haggis-eater,
The earth trembles under his step!
Put a sword in his huge fist,
And he’ll make it whistle through the air,
And legs, arms, and heads will be chopped off, right and left
Like weeds under a scythe.
You Gods, who look after us,
And supply us with food,
Old Scotland doesn't want any watery gruel,
Which slops about in pails;
But if you want our grateful thanks,
Give us Haggis!