New Inventions

by Hugh Kerr

Well ! now-a-days, what strange inventions,

Are occupying folks attentions;

Nae day yell waukin' i' the year

But yell o' some new cantrips hear;

'Bout politics or non-intrusion;

And everything to breed confusion;

Or some ane drawin' frae the Queen

A patent for some new machine;

For, now-a-days, there's nought will do

But some improvement—something new;

I doubt we've left the gude auld days,

When men trod mair in Wisdom's ways.

Langsyne, folk gaed the roads thigither,

And kindly spiered for ane anither;

And if two, three were gaun ae airt,

They's maybe hired some neebour's cairt,

Folk then got time to see the fields,

And pree the sweets that Nature yields;

But now those walks that folk enjoyed,

Wi' railway trains are a' destroyed.

For wha kens what they'll no' be tryin',

Since now wi' steam they're yoket flyin',

Trips to the stars will now be common.

As down frae Glasgow to Loch Lomond;

And lads and lasses to the moon, 

Be jauntin' in an aftsmoon.

Losh! what a chance to us 'twill be

To traffic wi' the moonfolk free.

But in that flying strange machine,

What tricks may blackguards do at e'en.

May they not take in spite o' people,

The weathercock off many a steeple;

And through folks' garret windows pap the

And fricht them sair, or maybe drap them,

Or hing a sheet before the moon,

And keep its licht frae shinin' doon.

Lovers may mount to wedunseen,

In Venus, 'stead ofGretna Green.

And bankrupts, free fae every sear,

May flee to some sequestered star.

Astronomers may break their glasses,

They're nae mair use to look at places,

Where folk can visit at their leisure,

For information and for pleasure.

Nae mair the youth will hie for knowledge,

To Aberdeen or Glasgow College,

But now on high he'll wing his flight,

To learn what books have taught, by sight

And things that puzzled learned men,

Each tartly callan soon shall ken.

And should the sun be wi' the moon

Eclipsed some bonnie afternoon,

Send up some Stewarton bonnet-makers,

Far famed for mighty undertakers,

Gie them gude footin' no to slide,

And they'll soon row the moon aside,

For langsyne, in their days o' might,

Our auld kirk didna please them right,

They thought it scarce due east and west,

And faith, they wadna -let it rest,

But four o' them gaed down ae nicht,

While each one catch'd a corner ticht.

And wheei'd it roun' and set it richt.

This is part of a poem by Hugh Kerr, known in Stewarton as " Poet Caur " and was written, although it's hard to believe, over 120 years ago.