The Covenanter’s Grace

This was the fashionable grace-before-meat at the tables of the Scottish nobility in the reign of Queen Mary. This legend was carved over many doorways in old
Edinburgh.

The Covenanter’s Grace

Some hae meat that canna eat,
And some wad eat that want it;
But we hae meat, and we can eat,
And sae the Lord be thankit.

Some have meat that cannot eat
And some would eat that want for it
But we have meat, and we can eat
So let the Lord be thanked for it.

These lines, repeated by Burns when he dined with the Earl of Selkirk, and generally considered his own, were, according to Robert Chambers, current in the south-west of Scotland before the poet’s time, and were known as the Covenanter’s grace.

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