Dweller in yon dungeon dark, Hangman of creation, mark! Who in widow weeds appears, Laden with unhonoured years, Noosing with care a bursting purse, Baited with many a deadly curse?
Not the bee upon the blossom, In the pride o' sunny noon; Not the little sporting fairy, All beneath the simmer moon; Not the poet, in the moment Fancy lightens in his e'e, Kens the pleasure, feels the rapture, That thy presence gi'es to me.
[Scottish songs] are, I own, frequently wild, & unreduceable to the more modern rules; but on that very eccentricity, perhaps, depends a great part of their effect.
Burns' Hog-Weighing Method: (1) Get a perfectly symmetrical plank and balance it across a sawhorse. (2) Put the hog on one end of the plank. (3) Pile rocks on the other end until the plank is again perfectly balanced. (4) Carefully guess the weight of the rocks.
Good Lord, what is man! for as simple he looks, Do but try to develop his books and his crooks, With his depths and his shallows, his good and his evil, All in all, he's a problem must puzzle the devil.
The poor inhabitant below Was quick to learn and wise to know And keenly felt the friendly glow And softer flame; But thoughtless follies laid him low, And stain'd his name!
Nature's law, That man was made to mourn. Man's inhumanity to man Makes countless thousands mourn! O Death, the poor man's dearest friend, The kindest and the best!