Page:Poems by Robert Louis Stevenson, Hitherto unpublished, 1921.djvu/86

 SIT DOON BY ME, MY CANTY FREEND—1874

This drinking song in the Scots dialect is associated with those convivial nights when Stevenson, with some of his fellow students, frequented the taverns of Edinburgh after days generally spent in serious study. It is, of course, the characteristic student drinking song of all ages, with the insistence on the value of tasting the delights of wine, especially in view of the shortness of life.

SIT DOON BY ME, MY CANTY FREEND

Sit doon by me, my canty freend,

Sit doon, an' snuff the licht!

A boll o' bear 's in ilka glass

Ye'se drink wi' me the nicht!

Chorus

Let preachers prate o' soberness

An' brand us ripe for doom,

Yet still we'll lo'e the brimmin' glass,

And still we'll hate the toom.

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