The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. / With a New Life of the Poet, and Notices, Critical and Biographical by Allan Cunningham, Volume 1 Papyras Classics

← The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. / With a New Life of the Poet, and Notices, Critical and Biographical by Allan Cunningham, Volume 1

Chapter 88

LXXIX. Verses Written Under the Portrait of Fergusson, the Poet, in a Copy of That Author’s Works Presented to a Young Lady

[Who the young lady was to whom the poet presented the portrait and Poems of the ill-fated Fergusson, we have not been told. The verses are dated Edinburgh, March 19th, 1787.]

Curse on ungrateful man, that can be pleas’d,
And yet can starve the author of the pleasure!
O thou my elder brother in misfortune,
By far my elder brother in the muses,
With tears I pity thy unhappy fate!
Why is the bard unpitied by the world,
Yet has so keen a relish of its pleasures?