Classic Poem

The brattie for sweepin', the brattie for dirt!
Tie on your brattie and tuck up your shirt!
It's always the case when there's cleanin' to do
That the first for the besom's the Bonnets o' Blue.
Once we were gentry and cleaned in the kilt,
Wi' a braw Hielan' sporran and money 'ntil't;
Now deil to the sporran! and tartan's napoo ;
It's ower guid for the work and it's put out o' view
Below the brown brattie for sweepin'!

The mothers that bore us — the best ever stept! —
Were up in the mornin' when other folk slept;
Do ye think they were deckin' themsel's in the glass,
Or plannin' diversions to mak' the day pass?
Na, na! the wee mothers, the dainty and dour,
Were up at revally to fight wi' the stour —
That the hame might be tidy, and children be spruce,
They swept like the winds o' the hill through the hoose,
And bonny they looked in their bratties!

Dirt will come down on ye, dae what ye can,
And cleanin' a steadin's a task for a man,
So we're up like our mothers at screigh o' the dawn,
Sarks up to the elbows and aprons on.
The thing to mak' Europe as clean as a whistle
'S a besom o' heath frae the land o' the thistle,
A besom o' heath and a wash o' the sea;
The breeks for our sailors, for us the bare knee,
And the brattie, the brattie o' Scotland!

If ever we fight wi' true gentry again,
We'll go in full tartan and meet them like men.
Our sporrans 'll glitter, our feathers 'll wave,
To honour a foe that is gallant and brave;
But for mucking a midden and cleanin' out swine
That's needin' a duckin' in water o' Rhine,
It were silly to dress in our Sunday array,
So we'll dress like our work as our mothers would say,
And that's wi' the bonny brown brattie!