Quotes
Quotes - Burns
Auld Nature swears the lovely dears
Her noblest work she classes, O;
Her 'prentice han' she tried on man,
And then she made the lasses, O!
Some books are lies frae end to end.
Some wee short hours ayont the twal.
The best laid schemes o' mice and men
Gang aft a-gley;
And leave us naught but grief and pain
For promised joy.
When chill November's surly blast
Made fields and forests bare.
Man's inhumanity to man
Makes countless thousands mourn.
Gars auld claes look amaist as weel's the new.
Beneath the milk-white thorn that scents the evening gale.
He wales a portion with judicious care;
And "Let us worship God," he says with solemn air.
Perhaps Dundee's wild-warbling measures rise,
Or plaintive Martyrs, worthy of the name.
From scenes like these old Scotia's grandeur springs,
That makes her loved at home, revered abroad:
Princes and lords are but the breath of kings,
"An honest man's the noblest work of God."
For a' that, and a' that,
And twice as muckle's a' that.
O Life! how pleasant is thy morning,
Young Fancy's rays the hills adorning!
Cold-pausing Caution's lesson scorning,
We frisk away,
Like schoolboys at th' expected warning,
To joy and play.
Misled by fancy's meteor ray,
By passion driven;
But yet the light that led astray
Was light from heaven.
And like a passing thought, she fled
In light away.
Affliction's sons are brothers in distress;
A brother to relieve,--how exquisite the bliss!
His locked, lettered, braw brass collar
Showed him the gentleman and scholar.
And there began a lang digression
About the lords o' the creation.
Oh wad some power the giftie gie us
To see oursel's as others see us!
It wad frae monie a blunder free us,
And foolish notion.
Then gently scan your brother man,
Still gentler sister woman;
Though they may gang a kennin' wrang,
To step aside is human.
What's done we partly may compute,
But know not what's resisted.
Stern Ruin's ploughshare drives elate
Full on thy bloom.
O life! thou art a galling load,
Along a rough, a weary road,
To wretches such as I!
Perhaps it may turn out a sang,
Perhaps turn out a sermon.
I waive the quantum o' the sin,
The hazard of concealing;
But, och! it hardens a' within,
And petrifies the feeling!
