It was more difficult to find examples of these traditional Burns supper toasts than I would have thought so I'm adding mine to the Internets. The gathering is a rather tame one and the tone of the toasts reflects this. Don't be surprise if parts sound familiar since I borrowed a sentence or two from just about every other toast I could find.
A Toast To the Lasses:
Thank you to the Daughters of Scotland for such a festive evening. It is always nice to see so many familiar faces and to meet a few new ones.
I hope I can meet the high expectations of those of you with actual SCOTS Blood running through your veins.
Unfortunately mine is mostly SCOTCH.
There was a touch of the rooster about Burns.
He loved many and fortunately for us he wrote about his affairs.
He was "Well Versed" on the topic of women you might say.
He so aptly describes the feeling of love in "A Red, Red Rose" .
O, my love is like the melody,
That is sweetly played in tune.
And on Devotion he wrote touchingly in John Anderson My Jo about the journey of a couple through life:
We climbed the hill together,
And many a jolly day, John,
We have had with one another;
Now we must totter down, John,
And hand in hand we will go,
And sleep together at the foot,
but Burns knew well the realities of dealing with the Lassies. Tam O Shanter for example:
And getting full (drunk) and mighty happy,
We think not on the long Scots miles,
The bogs, pools, breaches and stiles,
That lie between us and our home,
Where sits our sulky, sullen wife,
Gathering her forehead like a gathering storm,
Nursing her anger to keep it warm.
Undoubtedly one of my wife's ancestors.
My own observation is that: Whatever you give a Woman, they will make it greater
Give her a a House, She'll give you a Home
Give her Groceries, She'll give you a Meal
Give her a smile, She'll give you her heart.
And that' Gentlemen, is why I'm not going to give the Lassies any crap.
Gentlemen, raise your glasses for a toast.
I could find no finer words than those written by Burns himself.
"Auld Nature swears the lovely dears
Her noblest work she classes;
Her apprentice hand she tried on man,
And then She made the lasses!"
To the Lasses!
Response from the Lassies:
Good evening everyone and thank you dear husband for being so lovely about us Lassies.
Unfortunately it falls to me to lower the tone and talk about men.
Now Honored Burns was a rascal with a silver tongue.
And I am sure all the men here tonight have been suitably broken and are much tamer.
Burn's himself wrote:
There was, indeed, in far less polished days,
A time, when rough rude Man had naughty ways:
Would swagger, swear, get drunk, kick up a riot,
No, even thus invade a lady's quiet!
Now, thank our stars! these Gothic times are fled;
Now, well-bred men - and you are all well-bred -
Most justly think (and we are much the gainers)
Such conduct neither spirit, wit, nor manners.
Thankfully men have moved on from the gothic days.
I find it hard to imagine men more swaggering, swearing, or drunken than today,
but evidently it is true.
Burns was such a rascal that I think it fair to call him inconstant, unimaginative, and arrogant.
But he was also humorous and a romantic.
And my husband was correct that we lasses do our best with what we're given.
And so I'll finish with
Burn's description of perfect harmony between a man and women:
We will build a little, little house,
And we will live like king and queen,
So blithe and merry as we will be,
When you sit by the wheel at evening!
To the Laddies.
