David C Purdie
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Guid faa thee bonnie Standart Habbie,
Kirstent bi Ramsay, looed bi Rabbie;
T'wes Sempill first gid thee thy knabbie,
An byous fame.
I've kent thee sin I wes a babbie,
An blisst thy name.
Ye've
scriffit aff ti moose an haggis,
The Deil an sindry Nells an Maggies.
A kinch til ilka wit an wag is
Yer bob-wheel ploy;
A hantie tuil in bardic baggies;
The makar's joy.
Owre ilka kin o
verse an jink,
Owre michty ode or crambo clink,
Ye'll rule, sae lang as Scotsmen think
On makkin rhyme;
Til Habbie we'll aye tip the wink,
Or eyn o time.
Gie Japanese
their haiku dribbins,
The French their fremmit rondeau jibbins,
Eyetalians their terza blibbans,
Southrons their sonnets;
We'll bliss oor Habbie til the hivvens,
An heeze oor bunnets!
This poem by award winning poet
David C Purdie is republished from Scots Wittins, February 2005.
Note from the poet: This poem was first published in Orbis
No. 111 after it gained an Adjudicator's Commendation in the Rhyme
International Competition of 1998. The adjudicator, the
distinguished English poet Penelope Shuttle said of it, "... In
Praise O Standart Habbie, a vigorous testimony to the Scots
vernacular..." The competition was for two
categories of poem, Category A for poems not in any recognised
poetic form and Category B for set poetic forms such as, sonnet,
terza rime, rhyme royal, etc. Although I was pleased to see
the poem in Orbis, the only poem in Scots I ever saw in that
very English publication, I was not happy that it was put into
Category A. I entered it in Category B because so far as I am
concerned, Standard Habbie is a recognised poetic form. It may
not be commonly used south of the border, but in Scotland it has
been widely employed and been hugely popular for the best part of
four centuries. I wrote to the magazine's editor,
Mike Shields, seeking clarification but never got a satisfactory
reply. The competition is now no more and I think the magazine
is no more too. At any rate Mike Shields no longer edits it.
I, however, will maintain until my dying breath that dear old
Standard Habbie is as valid a form as any Villanelle, Sicilian
Octave or Spenserian Stanza.
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