Framed Drawing

98 x 69 cm

source poem: Tam O’Shanter

Text: ‘Each in its cauld hand held a light:

By which heroic Tam was able

To note upon the haly table,

A murderer’s bane, in gibbet-airns;

A thief new-cutted frae the rape -

Wi his last gasp his gab did gape;

Five tomahawks, wi bluid red-rusted:

Five scimitars, wi murder crusted;

A garter, which a babe had strangled;

A knife a father’s throat had mangled -

The grey-hairs yet stack to the heft;

Whom his ain son o life bereft -

Wi mair horrible and awefu,

Which even to name wad be unlawful.’