Young Hector was a handsome lad. He wore a tartan bonnet
He loved a lass from Auchterblane and wrote for her a sonnet
‘Be mine, sweet lass, and ‘bide with me, forever and a day’
He sang it in her garden bower amidst the flowers of May
She heard it in her boudoir and flushed a pretty shade
As she opened up her window to hear the song he made
He sang in macho baritone, aflame with love and pride
And heard the tinkling ivories from somewhere deep inside
He hadn’t known she had a dog, a snarling hairy beast
It clamped its jaws upon his kilt as if to have a feast
He still could hear his bonnie lassie playing her piano
He tried to hold his kilt in place, while singing pure soprano
He legged it to the garden gate; it seemed a league too far
His song became a girlish scream as he tried to leap the bar
The beast was having none of it; he heard a rip like thunder,
(Quite a crowd had gathered now) as his kilt was torn asunder
He did a kind of Highland fling; towards the street he dashed
The dog fell off; the kilt went too, as through the gate he flashed
By now poor Hector’s ardour had begun to fade and wilt
But he’d answered that age-old question, ’What’s under a Scotsman’s kilt?’
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