I put this in a new thread before noticing this one:

I've just been trying to learn A Man's A Man For a' That, and while I can follow most of the broad Scots dialect, the first verse is giving me a little bother, and maybe a Burns afficionado can give me a clue.
The first two lines are "Is there for honest poverty that hangs his head an' a' that?". To me this seems as if someone transcribing the verse had misheard "He's there for honest poverty that hangs his head an' a' that", i.e. writing "is" instead of "he's". This version seems to make actual sense while the original doesn't. "He's" goes with "his" later in the line. I'm not a sassenach trying to rewrite Burns' immortal lines, just a Welshman trying to understand!
What do you think?

Ray