A wee bit o' Burns

[Penny Tray]

O! soon, to me, may summer suns
Nae mair light up the morn!
Nae mair to me the autumn winds
Wave o’er the yellow corn!
And, in the narrow house of death,
Let winter round me rave;
And the next flow’rs that deck the spring,
Bloom on my peaceful grave.

*LAMENT OF MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS

[Penny Tray]

Dearly bought the hidden treasure
Finer feelings can bestow:
Chords that vibrate sweetest pleasure
Thrill the deepest notes of woe.

*ON SENSIBILITY

[Penny Tray]

Sweet flow’ret pledge o’ meikle love,
And ward o’ monie a prayer,
What heart o’ stane wad thou na move,
Sae helpless, sweet and fair!

*ON THE BIRTH OF A POSTHUMOUS CHILD

[Penny Tray]

The Kirk an’ State may join, an’ tell
To do sic things I maunna:
The Kirk an’ State may gae to Hell,
And I’ll gae to my Anna.

*YESTREEN I HAD A PINT O’ WINE

[Penny Tray]

Some have meat and cannot eat.
Some cannot eat that want it.
But we have meat and we can eat,
Sae let the Lord be thankit.

*BURNS GRACE AT KIRKCUDBRIGHT

[Penny Tray]

Whene’er to drink you are inclin’d,
Or cutty sarks rin in your mind,
Think! ye may buy the joys o’er dear:
Remember Tam o’ Shanter’s mare.

*TAM O’ SHANTER

[Penny Tray]

The Devil got notice that Grose was a-dying,
So whip! at the summons, old Satan came flying;
But when he approach’d where poor Francis lay moaning,
And saw each bed-post with its burthen a-groaning,
Astonish’d, confounded, cries Satan – ‘By God,
I’ll want him ere such a damnable load!’

*EPIGRAM ON FRANCIS GROSE THE ANTIQUARY

[Penny Tray]

We saw thee shine in youth and beauty’s pride,
And Virtue’s light, that beams beyond the spheres;
But, like the sun eclips’d at morning tide,
Thou left us darkling in a world of tears.

*ELEGY ON THE LATE MISS BURNET OF MONBODDO

[Penny Tray]

But for thy friends, and they are monie,
Baith honest men and lasses bonie,
May couthie Fortune, kind and cannie
In social glee,
Wi’ mornings blythe, and e’enings funny,
Bless them and thee!

*EPISTLE TO JOHN MAXWELL, ESQ., OF TERRAUGHTIE

[Penny Tray]

Like to a fading flower in May,
Which Gardner cannot save,
So Beauty must, sometime decay
And drop into the grave.

TO THE MEMORY OF THE UNFORTUNATE MISS BURNS 1791

[John Donnelly]

Like to a fading flower in May,
Which Gardner cannot save,
So Beauty must, sometime decay
And drop into the grave.

TO THE MEMORY OF THE UNFORTUANTE MISS BURNS 1791

Hi PT,

I wonder if this is the same Miss Burns from your post of 4 september.

JD.

[Penny Tray]

Like to a fading flower in May,
Which Gardner cannot save,
So Beauty must, sometime decay
And drop into the grave.

TO THE MEMORY OF THE UNFORTUANTE MISS BURNS 1791

Hi PT,

I wonder if this is the same Miss Burns from your post of 4 september.

JD.

JD,

It is indeed but she was not a relative of the poet. She was a well-known Edinburgh prostitute who was eventually banished from Edinburgh. Burns openly deplored this harshly puritanical treatment of his namesake.