Extempore Pinned On A Lady's Couch.

    If you rattle along like your mistress's tongue,
        Your speed will outrival the dart:
    But, a fly for your load, you'll break down on the road
        If your stuff has the rot, like her heart.

Robert Burns

Robert Burns, also known as Rabbie Burns, the Bard of Ayrshire, and various other names and epithets, was a Scottish poet and lyricist. He is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland and is celebrated worldwide. Born on January 25, 1759, in Alloway, he is best known for works such as 'Auld Lang Syne,' 'Scots Wha Hae,' and 'A Red, Red Rose.' He passed away on July 21, 1796, in Dumfries.

Robert Burns

Lines On Stirling.

Robert Burns, Simple Poetry

Epistle From Esopus To Maria.

Robert Burns, Simple Poetry

There Was A Lass.

Robert Burns, Simple Poetry

How Can I Be Blythe And Glad?

Robert Burns, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

Sketch.

    A little, upright, pert, tart, tripping wight,
    And still his precious self his dear delight;
    Who loves his own smart shadow in the streets
    Better than e'er the fairest she he meets:
    A man of fashion, too, he made his tour,
    Learn'd vive la bagatelle, et vive l'amour:
    So travell'd monkeys their grimace improve,
    Polish their grin, nay, sigh for ladies' love.
    Much specious lore, but little understood;
    Veneering oft outshines the solid wood:
    His solid sense, by inches you must tell.
    But mete his cunning by the old Scots ell;
    His meddling vanity, a busy fiend,
    Still making work his selfish craft must mend.

Robert Burns

Deluded Swain, The Pleasure.

I.

    Deluded swain, the pleasure
        The fickle fair can give thee,
    Is but a fairy treasure -
        Thy hopes will soon deceive thee.

II.

    The billows on the ocean,
        The breezes idly roaming,
    The clouds uncertain motion -
        They are but types of woman.

III.

    O! art thou not ashamed
        To doat upon a feature?
    If man thou wouldst be named,
        Despise the silly creature.

IV.

    Go find an honest fellow;
        Good claret set before thee:
    Hold on till thou art mellow,
        And then to bed in glory.

Robert Burns

My Lady

Bedecked in fashion trim,
With every curl a-quiver;
Or leaping, light of limb,
O'er rivulet and river;
Or skipping o'er the lea
On daffodil and daisy;
Or stretched beneath a tree,
All languishing and lazy;
Whatever be her mood -
Be she demurely prude
Or languishingly lazy -
My lady drives me crazy!
In vain her heart is wooed,
Whatever be her mood!

What profit should I gain
Suppose she loved me dearly?
Her coldness turns my brain
To VERGE of madness merely.
Her kiss - though, Heaven knows,
To dream of it were treason -
Would tend, as I suppose,
To utter loss of reason!
My state is not amiss;
I would not have a kiss
Which, in or out of season,
Might tend to loss of reason:
What profit in such bliss?
A ...

William Schwenck Gilbert

Address, Spoken By Miss Fontenelle On Her Benefit Night.

    Still anxious to secure your partial favour,
    And not less anxious, sure, this night than ever,
    A Prologue, Epilogue, or some such matter,
    'Twould vamp my bill, said I, if nothing better;
    So sought a Poet, roosted near the skies,
    Told him I came to feast my curious eyes;
    Said nothing like his works was ever printed;
    And last, my Prologue-business slyly hinted!
    "Ma'am, let me tell you," quoth my man of rhymes,
    "I know your bent, these are no laughing times:
    Can you, but, Miss, I own I have my fears,
    Dissolve in pause, and sentimental tears;
    With laden sighs, and solemn-rounded sentence,
    Rouse from his sluggish slumbers, fell Repentance;
    Paint Vengeance as he takes his horrid stand,
    Waving on high the des...

Robert Burns

Poem On Life, Addressed To Colonel De Peyster. Dumfries, 1796.

    My honoured colonel, deep I feel
    Your interest in the Poet's weal;
    Ah! now sma' heart hae I to speel
        The steep Parnassus,
    Surrounded thus by bolus, pill,
        And potion glasses.

    O what a canty warld were it,
    Would pain and care and sickness spare it;
    And fortune favour worth and merit,
        As they deserve!
    (And aye a rowth, roast beef and claret;
        Syne, wha wad starve?)

    Dame Life, tho' fiction out may trick her,
    And in paste gems and frippery deck her;
    Oh! flickering, feeble, and unsicker
        I've found her still,
    Ay wavering like the willow-wicker,
        'Tween good and ill.

    Then that curst carmagnole, auld Satan,
    Watches, like baudrons by a r...

Robert Burns

Fragment Inscribed To The Right Hon. C.J. Fox.

    How wisdom and folly meet, mix, and unite;
    How virtue and vice blend their black and their white;
    How genius, th' illustrious father of fiction,
    Confounds rule and law, reconciles contradiction,
    I sing: if these mortals, the critics, should bustle,
    I care not, not I, let the critics go whistle!

    But now for a patron, whose name and whose glory
    At once may illustrate and honour my story.

    Thou first of our orators, first of our wits;
    Yet whose parts and acquirements seem mere lucky hits;
    With knowledge so vast, and with judgment so strong,
    No man with the half of 'em e'er went far wrong;
    With passions so potent, and fancies so bright,
    No man with the half of 'em e'er went quite right;
    A sorry, poor mis...

Robert Burns