Ye ugly, creepin, blastit wonner, 
Detested. shunn'd by saunt an sinner, 
How daur ye set your fit upon her - 
Sae fine a lady! 
Gae somewhere else and seek your dinner 
On some poor body.

Swith! in some beggars hauffet squattle: 
There ye may creep, and sprawl, and sprattle, 
Wi ither kindred, jumping cattle; 
In shoals and nations; 
Whare horn nor bane ne'er daur unsettle 
Your thick plantations.

Now haud you there! ye're out o sight, 
Below the fatt'rils, snug an tight, 
Na, faith ye yet! ye'll no be right, 
Till ye've got on it - 
The vera tapmost, tow'rin height 
O Miss's bonnet.

My sooth! right bauld ye set your nose out, 
As plump an grey as onie grozet: 
O for some rank, mercurial rozet, 
Or fell, red smeddum, 
I'd gie you sic a hearty dose o't, 
Wad dress your droddum!

I wad na been surpris'd to spy 
You on an auld wife's flainen toy; 
Or aiblins some bit duddie boy, 
On's wyliecoat: 
But Miss's fine Lunardi! fye! 
How daur ye do't?

O Jeany, dinna toss your head. 
An set your beauties a' abread! 
Ye little ken what cursed speed 
The blastie's makin! 
Thae winks an finger-ends, I dread, 
Are notice takin!

O wad some Power the gift tae gie us 
To see oursels as ithers see us! 
It wad frae mony a blunder free us, 
An foolish notion: 
What airs in dress an gait wad lea'e us, 
An ev'n devotion!

 The Seekers of Lice.

When the child's forehead, full of red torments,

There come near his bed two tall charming sisters 

With slim fingers that have silvery nails. 
They seat the child in front of a wide open 
Window where the blue air bathes a mass of flowers, 
And in his heavy hair where the dew falls, 
Move their delicate, fearful and enticing fingers. 
He listens to the singing of their apprehensive breath 
Which smells of long rosy plant honey, 
And which at times a hiss interrupts, saliva 
Caught on the lip or desire for kisses. 
He hears their black eyelashes beating 
in the perfumed Silence; 
and their gentle electric fingers 
Make in his half-drunken indolence the death of the little lice 
Crackle under their royal nails. 
Then the wine of Sloth rises in him, 
The sigh of an harmonica which could bring on delerium; 
The child feels, according to the slowness of the caresses, 
Surging in him and dying continuously a desire to cry

Louse hunting.

Nudes -- stark and glistening,
Yelling in lurid glee. Grinning faces
And raging limbs
Whirl over the floor one fire.
For a shirt verminously busy
Yon soldier tore from his throat, with oaths
Godhead might shrink at, but not the lice.
And soon the shirt was aflare
Over the candle he'd lit while we lay.

Then we all sprang up and stript
To hunt the verminous brood.
Soon like a demons' pantomine
The place was raging.
See the silhouettes agape,
See the glibbering shadows
Mixed with the battled arms on the wall.
See gargantuan hooked fingers
Pluck in supreme flesh
To smutch supreme littleness.
See the merry limbs in hot Highland fling
Because some wizard vermin
Charmed from the quiet this revel
When our ears were half lulled
By the dark music
Blown from Sleep's trumpet.