Poems (Cary)/Burns
For works with similar titles, see Burns.
BURNS.[1]
He died: he went from all the praise That fell on ears unheeding,And scarcely can we read his lays For pauses in the reading,To mourn the buds of poesy, That never came to blushing;For who can choose but sigh ,ah me! For their untimely crushing!
And when we see, o'er ruins dim, The summer roses climbing,We sadly pause, and think of him, The beauty of whose rhymingSpread sunshine o'er the darkest ill,— Alas! it could not coverThe heart from breaking, that was still Through all despairs a lover—
A lover of the beautiful, In nature's sweet evangels;For his great heart was worshipful, For men, and for the angels. The rank with him was not the man, He knew no servile bowing;And wee things o'er the furrow ran Unharmed beside his plowing.
Lights flowing out of palaces Dimmed not the candles burning,Whereby the glorious mysteries Of music he was learning;And not with envious looks he eyed The morning larks upgoing,From meadows that were all too wide And green for peasant mowing.
For by his cabin door the grass Was pleasant with the daisies;And o'er the brae, some bonny lass Was happy in his praises.Oh Thou who hear'st my simple strain, The while I muse his story—Here knew he all a poet's pain, Grant now he have the glory!
- ↑ Written on reading in the Letters of Burns "We have no flour in the and must borrow for a few days."