His face with smile eternal drest,Just like the Landlord’s to his Guest’s,High as they hang with creaking din,To index out the Country Inn.He looked just as your sign-post Lions do,With aspect fierce, and quite as harmless too. A head, pure, sinless quite of brain and soul,The very image of a barber’s Poll;It shews a human […]

Curs’d be the man, the poorest wretch in life,The crouching vassal to a tyrant wife!Who has no will but by her high permission,Who has not sixpence but in her possession;Who must to he, his dear friend’s secrets tell,Who dreads a curtain lecture worse than hell.Were such the wife had fallen to my part,I’d break her […]

By all I lov’d, neglected and forgot,No friendly face e’er lights my squalid cot;Shunn’d, hated, wrong’d, unpitied, unredrest,The mock’d quotation of the scorner’s jest!Ev’n the poor support of my wretched life,Snatched by the violence of legal strife.Oft grateful for my very daily breadTo those my family’s once large bounty fed;A welcome inmate at their homely […]

With Pegasus upon a day,Apollo, weary flying,Through frosty hills the journey lay,On foot the way was plying. Poor slipshod giddy PegasusWas but a sorry walker;To Vulcan then Apollo goes,To get a frosty caulker. Obliging Vulcan fell to work,Threw by his coat and bonnet,And did Sol’s business in a crack;Sol paid him with a sonnet. Ye […]

[On Returning a Newspaper.] Your News and Review, sir.I’ve read through and through, sir,With little admiring or blaming;The Papers are barrenOf home-news or foreign,No murders or rapes worth the naming. Our friends, the Reviewers,Those chippers and hewers,Are judges of mortar and stone, sir;But of meet or unmeet,In a fabric complete,I’ll boldly pronounce they are none, […]

She’s fair and fause that causes my smart,I lo’ed her meikle and lang;She’s broken her vow, she’s broken my heart,And I may e’en gae hang.A coof cam in wi’ routh o’ gear,And I hae tint my dearest dear;But Woman is but warld’s gear,Sae let the bonie lass gang. Whae’er ye be that woman love,To this […]

Dear, Sir, at ony time or tide,I’d rather sit wi’ you than ride,Though ’twere wi’ royal Geordie:And trowth, your kindness, soon and late,Aft gars me to mysel’ look blate–The Lord in Heav’n reward ye! R. Burns.Ellisland.

[Sent with some of the Author’s Poems.] O could I give thee India’s wealth,As I this trifle send;Because thy joy in both would beTo share them with a friend. But golden sands did never graceThe Heliconian stream;Then take what gold could never buy–An honest bard’s esteem.

[To Miss Cruickshank, a very Young Lady] [Written on the Blank Leaf of a Book, presented to her by the Author.] Beauteous Rosebud, young and gay,Blooming in thy early May,Never may’st thou, lovely flower,Chilly shrink in sleety shower!Never Boreas’ hoary path,Never Eurus’ pois’nous breath,Never baleful stellar lights,Taint thee with untimely blights!Never, never reptile thiefRiot on […]

[Tune–“Caledonian Hunts’ Delight” of Mr. Gow.] There was once a day, but old Time wasythen young,That brave Caledonia, the chief of her line,From some of your northern deities sprung,(Who knows not that brave Caledonia’s divine?)From Tweed to the Orcades was her domain,To hunt, or to pasture, or do what she would:Her heav’nly relations there fixed […]

Auld comrade dear, and brither sinner,How’s a’ the folk about Glenconner?How do you this blae eastlin wind,That’s like to blaw a body blind?For me, my faculties are frozen,My dearest member nearly dozen’d.I’ve sent you here, by Johnie Simson,Twa sage philosophers to glimpse on;Smith, wi’ his sympathetic feeling,An’ Reid, to common sense appealing.Philosophers have fought and […]

(March, 1789) Daughter of Chaos’ doting years,Nurse of ten thousand hopes and fears,Whether thy airy, insubstantial shade(The rights of sepulture now duly paid)Spread abroad its hideous formOn the roaring civil storm,Deafening din and warring rageFactions wild with factions wage;Or under-ground, deep-sunk, profound,Among the demons of the earth,With groans that make the mountains shake,Thou mourn thy […]

Ye gallants bright, I rede you right,Beware o’ bonie Ann;Her comely face sae fu’ o’ grace,Your heart she will trepan:Her een sae bright, like stars by night,Her skin sae like the swan;Sae jimply lac’d her genty waist,That sweetly ye might span. Youth, Grace, and Love attendant move,And pleasure leads the van:In a’ their charms, and […]

How wisdom and Folly meet, mix, and unite,How Virtue and Vice blend their black and their white,How Genius, th’ illustrious father of fiction,Confounds rule and law, reconciles contradiction,I sing: If these mortals, the critics, should bustle,I care not, not I–let the Critics go whistle! But now for a Patron whose name and whose glory,At once […]

[On the Thanksgiving-Day for His Majesty’s Recovery.] O sing a new song to the Lord,Make, all and every one,A joyful noise, even for the KingHis restoration. The sons of Belial in the landDid set their heads together;Come, let us sweep them off, said they,Like an o’erflowing river. They set their heads together, I say,They set […]

On a bank of flowers, in a summer day,For summer lightly drest,The youthful, blooming Nelly lay,With love and sleep opprest;When Willie, wand’ring thro’ the wood,Who for her favour oft had sued;He gaz’d, he wish’dHe fear’d, he blush’d,And trembled where he stood. Her closed eyes, like weapons sheath’d,Were seal’d in soft repose;Her lip, still as she […]

Tune–“The Gardener’s March.” When rosy May comes in wi’ flowers,To deck her gay, green-spreading bowers,Then busy, busy are his hours,The Gard’ner wi’ his paidle. The crystal waters gently fa’,The merry bards are lovers a’,The scented breezes round him blaw–The Gard’ner wi’ his paidle. When purple morning starts the hareTo steal upon her early fare;Then thro’ […]

“To the Editor of The Star.–Mr. Printer–If the productions of a simple ploughman can merit a place in the same paper with Sylvester Otway, and the other favourites of the Muses who illuminate the Star with the lustre of genius, your insertion of the enclosed trifle will be succeeded by future communications from–Yours, etc., R. […]

Inhuman man! curse on thy barb’rous art,And blasted be thy murder-aiming eye;May never pity soothe thee with a sigh,Nor ever pleasure glad thy cruel heart! Go live, poor wand’rer of the wood and field!The bitter little that of life remains:No more the thickening brakes and verdant plainsTo thee a home, or food, or pastime yield. […]

Chorus.–Jamie, come try me,Jamie, come try me,If thou would win my love,Jamie, come try me. If thou should ask my love,Could I deny thee?If thou would win my love,Jamie, come try me!Jamie, come try me, etc. If thou should kiss me, love,Wha could espy thee?If thou wad be my love,Jamie, come try me!Jamie, come try […]