by Robert Burns
The flowery Spring leads sunny Summer,
The yellow Autumn presses near; 10
Then in his turn comes gloomy Winter,
Till smiling Spring again appear:
Thus seasons dancing, life advancing,
Old Time and Nature their changes tell;
But never ranging, still unchanging, 15
I adore my bonie Bell.
Chronological List of Poems
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342.
Sweet Afton (Song)
FLOW gently, sweet Afton! amang thy green braes,
Flow gently, I’ll sing thee a song in thy praise;
My Mary’s asleep by thy murmuring stream,
Flow gently, sweet Afton, disturb not her dream.
Thou stockdove whose echo resounds thro’ the glen, 5
Ye wild whistling blackbirds in yon thorny den,
Thou green-crested lapwing thy screaming forbear,
I charge you, disturb not my slumbering Fair.
How lofty, sweet Afton, thy neighbouring hills,
Far mark’d with the courses of clear, winding rills; 10
There daily I wander as noon rises high,
My flocks and my Mary’s sweet cot in my eye.
How pleasant thy banks and green valleys below,
Where, wild in the woodlands, the primroses blow;
There oft, as mild Ev’ning weeps over the lea, 15
The sweet-scented birk shades my Mary and me.
Thy crystal stream, Afton, how lovely it glides,
And winds by the cot where my Mary resides;
How wanton thy waters her snowy feet lave,
As, gathering sweet flowerets, she stems thy clear wave. 20
Flow gently, sweet Afton, amang thy green braes,
Flow gently, sweet river, the theme of my lays;
My Mary’s asleep by thy murmuring stream,
Flow gently, sweet Afton, disturb not her dream.
Chronological List of Poems
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343.
Address to the shade of Thomson
On Crowning His Bust at Ednam, Roxburghshire, with a Wreath of Bays.
WHILE virgin Spring by Eden’s flood,
Unfolds her tender mantle green,
Or pranks the sod in frolic mood,
Or tunes Eolian strains between.
While Summer, with a matron grace, 5
Retreats to Dryburgh’s cooling shade,
Yet oft, delighted, stops to trace
The progress of the spiky blade.
While Autumn, benefactor kind,
By Tweed erects his aged head, 10
And sees, with self-approving mind,
Each creature on his bounty fed.
While maniac Winter rages o’er
The hills whence classic Yarrow flows,
Rousing the turbid torrent’s roar, 15
Or sweeping, wild, a waste of snows.
So long, sweet Poet of the year!
Shall bloom that wreath thou well hast won;
While Scotia, with exulting tear,
Proclaims that THOMSON was her son. 20
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344.
Nithdale’s Welcome Hame (Song)
THE NOBLE Maxwells and their powers
Are coming o’er the border,
And they’ll gae big Terreagles’ towers
And set them a’ in order.
And they declare Terreagles fair, 5
For their abode they choose it;
There’s no a heart in a’ the land
But’s lighter at the news o’t.
Tho’ stars in skies may disappear,
And angry tempests gather; 10
The happy hour may soon be near
That brings us pleasant weather:
The weary night o’ care and grief
May hae a joyfu’ morrow;
so dawning day has brought relief, 15
Fareweel our night o’ sorrow.
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345.
Frae the friends and land I love (Song)
Tune— “Carron Side.”
FRAE the friends and land I love,
Driv’n by Fortune’s felly spite;
Frae my best belov’d I rove,
Never mair to taste delight:
Never mair maun hope to find 5
Ease frae toil, relief frae care;
When Remembrance wracks the mind,
Pleasures but unveil despair.
Brightest climes shall mirk appear,
Desert ilka blooming shore, 10
Till the Fates, nae mair severe,
Friendship, love, and peace restore,
Till Revenge, wi’ laurel’d head,
Bring our banished hame again;
And ilk loyal, bonie lad 15
Cross the seas, and win his ain.
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346.
Such a parcel of Rogues in a Nation (Song)
FAREWEEL to a’ our Scottish fame,
Fareweel our ancient glory;
Fareweel ev’n to the Scottish name,
Sae fam’d in martial story.
Now Sark rins over Solway sands, 5
An’ Tweed rins to the ocean,
To mark where England’s province stands —
Such a parcel of rogues in a nation!
What force or guile could not subdue,
Thro’ many warlike ages, 10
Is wrought now by a coward few,
For hireling traitor’s wages.
The English stell we could disdain,
Secure in valour’s station;
But English gold has been our bane — 15
Such a parcel of rogues in a nation!
O would, or I had seen the day
That Treason thus could sell us,
My auld grey head had lien in clay,
Wi’ Bruce and loyal Wallace! 20
But pith and power, till my last hour,
I’ll mak this declaration;
We’re bought and sold for English gold —
Such a parcel of rogues in a nation!
Chronological List of Poems
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347.
Ye Jacobites by Name (Song)
YE Jacobites by name, give an ear, give an ear,
Ye Jacobites by name, give an ear,
Ye Jacobites by name,
Your fautes I will proclaim,
Your doctrines I maun blame, you shall hear. 5
What is Right, and What is Wrang, by the law, by the law?
What is Right and what is Wrang by the law?
What is Right, and what is Wrang?
A short sword, and a lang,
A weak arm and a strang, for to draw. 10
What makes heroic strife, famed afar, famed afar?
What makes heroic strife famed afar?
What makes heroic strife?
To whet th’ assassin’s knife,
Or hunt a Parent’s life, wi’ bluidy war? 15
Then let your schemes alone, in the state, in the state,
Then let your schemes alone in the state.
Then let your schemes alone,
Adore the rising sun,
And leave a man undone, to his fate. 20
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348.
I hae been at Crookieden (Song)
I HAE been at Crookieden,
My bonie laddie, Highland laddie,
Viewing Willie and his men,
My bonie laddie, Highland laddie.
There our foes that burnt and slew, 5
My bonie laddie, Highland laddie,
There, at last, they gat their due,
My bonie laddie, H
ighland laddie.
Satan sits in his black neuk,
My bonie laddie, Highland laddie, 10
Breaking sticks to roast the Duke,
My bonie laddie, Highland laddie,
The bloody monster gae a yell,
My bonie laddie, Highland laddie.
And loud the laugh gied round a’ hell 15
My bonie laddie, Highland laddie.
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349.
Kenmure’s on and awa, Willie (Song)
O KENMURE’S on and awa, Willie,
O Kenmure’s on and awa:
An’ Kenmure’s lord’s the bravest lord
That ever Galloway saw.
Success to Kenmure’s band, Willie! 5
Success to Kenmure’s band!
There’s no a heart that fears a Whig,
That rides by kenmure’s hand.
Here’s Kenmure’s health in wine, Willie!
Here’s Kenmure’s health in wine! 10
There’s ne’er a coward o’ Kenmure’s blude,
Nor yet o’ Gordon’s line.
O Kenmure’s lads are men, Willie,
O Kenmure’s lads are men;
Their hearts and swords are metal true, 15
And that their foes shall ken.
They’ll live or die wi’ fame, Willie;
They’ll live or die wi’ fame;
But sune, wi’ sounding victorie,
May Kenmure’s lord come hame! 20
Here’s him that’s far awa, Willie!
Here’s him that’s far awa!
And here’s the flower that I loe best,
The rose that’s like the snaw.
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350.
Epistle to John Maxwell, Esq., of Terraughty
On His Birthday.
HEALTH to the Maxwell’s veteran Chief!
Health, aye unsour’d by care or grief:
Inspir’d, I turn’d Fate’s sibyl leaf,
This natal morn,
I see thy life is stuff o’ prief, 5
Scarce quite half-worn.
This day thou metes threescore eleven,
And I can tell that bounteous Heaven
(The second-sight, ye ken, is given
To ilka Poet) 10
On thee a tack o’ seven times seven
Will yet bestow it.
If envious buckies view wi’ sorrow
Thy lengthen’d days on this blest morrow,
May Desolation’s lang-teeth’d harrow, 15
Nine miles an hour,
Rake them, like Sodom and Gomorrah,
In brunstane stour.
But for thy friends, and they are mony,
Baith honest men, and lassies bonie, 20
May couthie Fortune, kind and cannie,
In social glee,
Wi’ mornings blythe, and e’enings funny,
Bless them and thee!
Fareweel, auld birkie! Lord be near ye, 25
And then the deil, he daurna steer ye:
Your friends aye love, your faes aye fear ye;
For me, shame fa’ me,
If neist my heart I dinna wear ye,
While Burns they ca’ me. 30
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351.
Second Epistle to Robert Graham, Esq., of Fintry
5th October 1791.
LATE crippl’d of an arm, and now a leg,
About to beg a pass for leave to beg;
Dull, listless, teas’d, dejected, and deprest
(Nature is adverse to a cripple’s rest);
Will generous Graham list to his Poet’s wail? 5
(It soothes poor Misery, hearkening to her tale)
And hear him curse the light he first survey’d,
And doubly curse the luckless rhyming trade?
Thou, Nature! partial Nature, I arraign;
Of thy caprice maternal I complain; 10
The lion and the bull thy care have found,
One shakes the forests, and one spurns the ground;
Thou giv’st the ass his hide, the snail his shell;
Th’ envenom’d wasp, victorious, guards his cell;
Thy minions kings defend, control, devour, 15
In all th’ omnipotence of rule and power;
Foxes and statesmen subtile wiles ensure;
The cit and polecat stink, and are secure;
Toads with their poison, doctors with their drug,
The priest and hedgehog in their robes, are snug; 20
Ev’n silly woman has her warlike arts,
Her tongue and eyes — her dreaded spear and darts.
But Oh! thou bitter step-mother and hard,
To thy poor, fenceless, naked child — the Bard!
A thing unteachable in world’s skill, 25
And half an idiot too, more helpless still:
No heels to bear him from the op’ning dun;
No claws to dig, his hated sight to shun;
No horns, but those by luckless Hymen worn,
And those, alas! not, Amalthea’s horn: 30
No nerves olfact’ry, Mammon’s trusty cur,
Clad in rich Dulness’ comfortable fur;
In naked feeling, and in aching pride,
He bears th’ unbroken blast from ev’ry side:
Vampyre booksellers drain him to the heart, 35
And scorpion critics cureless venom dart.
Critics — appall’d, I venture on the name;
Those cut-throat bandits in the paths of fame:
Bloody dissectors, worse than ten Monroes;
He hacks to teach, they mangle to expose: 40
His heart by causeless wanton malice wrung,
By blockheads’ daring into madness stung;
His well-won bays, than life itself more dear,
By miscreants torn, who ne’er one sprig must wear;
Foil’d, bleeding, tortur’d in th’ unequal strife, 45
The hapless Poet flounders on thro’ life:
Till, fled each hope that once his bosom fir’d,
And fled each muse that glorious once inspir’d,
Low sunk in squalid, unprotected age,
Dead even resentment for his injur’d page, 50
He heeds or feels no more the ruthless critic’s rage!
So, by some hedge, the gen’rous steed deceas’d,
For half-starv’d snarling curs a dainty feast;
By toil and famine wore to skin and bone,
Lies, senseless of each tugging bitch’s son. 55
O Dulness! portion of the truly blest!
Calm shelter’d haven of eternal rest!
Thy sons ne’er madden in the fierce extremes
Of Fortune’s polar frost, or torrid beams.
If mantling high she fills the golden cup, 60
With sober selfish ease they sip it up;
Conscious the bounteous meed they well deserve,
They only wonder “some folks” do not starve.
The grave sage hern thus easy picks his frog,
And thinks the mallard a sad worthless dog. 65
When disappointments snaps the clue of hope,
And thro’ disastrous night they darkling grope,
With deaf endurance sluggishly they bear,
And just conclude that “fools are fortune’s care.”
So, heavy, passive to the tempest’s shocks, 70
Strong on the sign-post stands the stupid ox.
Not so the idle Muses’ mad-cap train,
Not such the workings of their moon-struck brain;
In equanimity they never dwell,
By turns in soaring heav’n, or vaulted hell. 75
I dread thee, Fate, relentless and severe,
With all a poet’s, husband’s, father’s fear!
Already one str
ong hold of hope is lost —
Glencairn, the truly noble, lies in dust
(Fled, like the sun eclips’d as noon appears, 80
And left us darkling in a world of tears);
O! hear my ardent, grateful, selfish pray’r!
Fintry, my other stay, long bless and spare!
Thro’ a long life his hopes and wishes crown,
And bright in cloudless skies his sun go down! 85
May bliss domestic smooth his private path;
Give energy to life; and soothe his latest breath,
With many a filial tear circling the bed of death!
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352.
The Song of Death
Tune— “Oran an aoig.”
Scene — A Field of Battle — Time of the day, evening — The wounded and dying of the victorious army are supposed to join in the following song.
FAREWELL, thou fair day, thou green earth, and ye skies,
Now gay with the broad setting sun;
Farewell, loves and friendships, ye dear tender ties,
Our race of existence is run!
Thou grim King of Terrors; thou Life’s gloomy foe! 5
Go, frighten the coward and slave;
Go, teach them to tremble, fell tyrant! but know