(no subject)

[the_catharsis]

'Comin' Thro the Rye'

O, Jenny's a' weet, poor body,
Jenny's seldom dry;
She draigl't a' her petticoattie
Comin thro' the rye.

Chorus:
Comin thro the rye, poor body,
Comin thro the rye,
She draigl't a'her petticoatie,
Comin thro the rye!

Gin a body meet a body
Comin thro the rye,
Gin a body kiss a body,
Need a body cry?

Gin a body meet a body
Comin thro the glen,
Gin a body kiss a body,
Need the warld ken?

-- Robert Burns

Notes:

a' weet: all wet
gin [g as in give]: if
draigl't a' her petticoattie: draggled (wet by trailing on the ground) all
her petticoats
ken: know

Salinger's classic 'Catcher in the Rye' owes its title to the protagonist's
misremembering the poem as 'Gin a body catch a body/ Comin thro the rye' -
the image of a 'catcher' in the rye stayed with him.

No less a person than the physicist James Clerk Maxwell parodied 'Comin'
Thro the Rye' in his 'Rigid Body Sings'

Gin a body meet a body
Flyin' thro the air,
Gin a body hit a body,
Will it fly? And where?
Ilka impact has its measure
Ne'er a' ane hae I
Yet a' the lads they measure me,
Or, at least, they try.

Gin a body meet a body
Altogether free,
How they travel afterwards
We do not always see.
Ilka problem has its method
By analytics high;
For me, I ken na ane o' them,
But what the waur am I?

-- James Maxwell

[Ilka: each; Ane: one; Waur: worse]