Scottish Text Society publications > Old series > Poems of Alexander Montgomerie

I 12
THE CHERRIE AND THE SLAE.
WREITTOUN] 81.
“ Confront him further face for1 face,
If yet hee rewes his rackles race,
Perhaps and ye shall heare ;
For ay since Adam and since Eve,
Who first thy leasings did believe, T125
I sold thy doctrine deare.
What hath beene done, even to this day,
I keep in minde almaist:
Ye promise further than ye pay,
Sir Hope, for all your haste; 1130
Promitting, unwitting,
Your heghts yee never hooked;
I show you, I know you;
Your bygones I have booked.
82.
“ I would,2 incace a count were crav’d, 1 r35
Shew thousand,3 thousands thou deceivde,
Where thou was true to one;
And, by the contrare, I may vant,
Which thou must,4 though it grieve thee, grant,
I trumped never a man, 1140
But truely told the naked trueth
To men that meld with mee,
For neither rigour nor for rueth,
But onely loath to lie.
To some yet to come yet 1145
Thy succour shall5 be slight;
Which I then must 6 try then,
And register it right.”
1 E. to. 2 E. could. 3 E. thousands.
4 E. maun. 5 E. will. 6 E. maun.