Poetry of Burns
Robert Burns
born 1759, died 1796 |
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A Vision
As I stood by yon roofless tower,
Where the wa'-flower scents the dewy air,
Where the howlet mourns in her ivy bower,
And tells the midnight moon her care;
The winds were laid, the air was still,
The stars they shot along the sky;
The fox was howling on the hill,
And the distant-echoing glens reply.
The stream, adown its hazelly path,
Was rushing by the ruin'd wa's.
Hasting to join the sweeping Nith,
Whose distant roaring swells and fa's.
The cauld blue north was streaming forth
Her lights, wi' hissing, eerie din:
Athort the lift they start and shift,
Like fortune's favours, tint as win.
By heedless chance I turn'd mine eyes,
And, by the moonbeam, shook to see
A stern and stalwart ghaist arise,
Attir'd as minstrels wont to be.
Had I a statue been o' stane,
His daring look had daunted me;
And on his bonnet grav'd was plain,
The sacred posie - "Liberty!"
And frae his harp sic strains did flow,
Might rous'd the slumb'ring dead to hear:
But, oh! it was a tale of woe,
As ever met a Briton's ear!
He sang wi' joy his former day,
He, weeping, wail'd his latter times;
But what he said it was nae play, -
I winna venture 't in my rhymes.
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