Robert Burns Elegy Poems

Lament in rhyme, lament in prose,
Wi' saut tears tricklin down your nose;
Our bardie's fate is at a close,
Past a' remead!
...

HAS auld Kilmarnock seen the deil?
Or great Mackinlay 1 thrawn his heel?
Or Robertson 2 again grown weel,
To preach an' read?
"Na' waur than a'! cries ilka chiel,
"Tam Samson's dead!"
...

STRAIT is the spot and green the sod
From whence my sorrows flow;
And soundly sleeps the ever dear
Inhabitant below.
...

O DEATH! thou tyrant fell and bloody!
The meikle devil wi' a woodie
Haurl thee hame to his black smiddie,
O'er hurcheon hides,
...

THE LAMP of day, with-ill presaging glare,
Dim, cloudy, sank beneath the western wave;
Th' inconstant blast howl'd thro' the dark'ning air,
And hollow whistled in the rocky cave.
...

FOR lords or kings I dinna mourn,
E'en let them die-for that they're born:
But oh! prodigious to reflec'!
A Towmont, sirs, is gane to wreck!
...

PEG NICHOLSON was a good bay mare,
As ever trod on airn;
But now she's floating down the Nith,
And past the mouth o' Cairn.
...

NAE heathen name shall I prefix,
Frae Pindus or Parnassus;
Auld Reekie dings them a' to sticks,
For rhyme-inspiring lasses.
...

NOW Robin 1 lies in his last lair,
He'll gabble rhyme, nor sing nae mair;
Cauld poverty, wi' hungry stare,
Nae mair shall fear him;
...