The Complete Works - Robert Burns

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DESPONDENCY. AN ODE

      [“I think,” said Burns, “it is one of the greatest pleasures attending a poetic genius, that we can give our woes, cares, joys, and loves an embodied form in verse, which to me is ever immediate ease.” He elsewhere says, “My passions raged like so many devils till they got vent in rhyme.” That eminent painter, Fuseli, on seeing his wife in a passion, said composedly, “Swear my love, swear heartily: you know not how much it will ease you!” This poem was printed in the Kilmarnock edition, and gives a true picture of those bitter moments experienced by the bard, when love and fortune alike deceived him.]

      I.

      Oppress’d with grief, oppress’d with care,

      A burden more than I can bear,

      I set me down and sigh:

      O life! thou art a galling load,

      Along a rough, a weary road,

      To wretches such as I!

      Dim-backward as I cast my view,

      What sick’ning scenes appear!

      What sorrows yet may pierce me thro’

      Too justly I may fear!

      Still caring, despairing,

      Must be my bitter doom;

      My woes here shall close ne’er

      But with the closing tomb!

      II.

      Happy, ye sons of busy life,

      Who, equal to the bustling strife,

      No other view regard!

      Ev’n when the wished end’s deny’d,

      Yet while the busy means are ply’d,

      They bring their own reward:

      Whilst I, a hope-abandon’d wight,

      Unfitted with an aim,

      Meet ev’ry sad returning night

      And joyless morn the same;

      You, bustling, and justling,

      Forget each grief and pain;

      I, listless, yet restless,

      Find every prospect vain.

      III.

      How blest the solitary’s lot,

      Who, all-forgetting, all forgot,

      Within his humble cell,

      The cavern wild with tangling roots,

      Sits o’er his newly-gather’d fruits,

      Beside his crystal well!

      Or, haply, to his ev’ning thought,

      By unfrequented stream,

      The ways of men are distant brought,

      A faint collected dream;

      While praising, and raising

      His thoughts to heav’n on high,

      As wand’ring, meand’ring,

      He views the solemn sky.

      IV.

      Than I, no lonely hermit plac’d

      Where never human footstep trac’d,

      Less fit to play the part;

      The lucky moment to improve,

      And just to stop, and just to move,

      With self-respecting art:

      But, ah! those pleasures, loves, and joys,

      Which I too keenly taste,

      The solitary can despise,

      Can want, and yet be blest!

      He needs not, he heeds not,

      Or human love or hate,

      Whilst I here, must cry here

      At perfidy ingrate!

      V.

      Oh! enviable, early days,

      When dancing thoughtless pleasure’s maze,

      To care, to guilt unknown!

      How ill exchang’d for riper times,

      To feel the follies, or the crimes,

      Of others, or my own!

      Ye tiny elves that guiltless sport,

      Like linnets in the bush,

      Ye little know the ills ye court,

      When manhood is your wish!

      The losses, the crosses,

      That active man engage!

      The fears all, the tears all,

      Of dim declining age!

      XLIII. THE COTTER’S SATURDAY NIGHT. INSCRIBED TO ROBERT AIKEN, ESQ

      “Let not ambition mock their useful toil,

      Their homely joys, and destiny obscure:

      Nor grandeur hear, with a disdainful smile,

      The short and simple annals of the poor.”

Gray

      [The house of William Burns was the scene of this fine, devout, and tranquil drama, and William himself was the saint, the father, and the husband, who gives life and sentiment to the whole. “Robert had frequently remarked to me,” says Gilbert Burns, “that he thought there was something peculiarly venerable in the phrase, ‘Let us worship God!’ used by a decent sober head of a family, introducing family worship.” To this sentiment of the author the world is indebted for the “Cotter’s Saturday Night.” He owed some little, however, of the inspiration to Fergusson’s “Farmer’s Ingle,” a poem of great merit. The calm tone and holy composure of the Cotter’s Saturday Night have been mistaken by Hogg for want of nerve and life. “It is a dull, heavy, lifeless poem,” he says, “and the only beauty it possesses, in my estimation, is, that it is a sort of family picture of the poet’s family. The worst thing of all, it is not original, but is a decided imitation of Fergusson’s beautiful pastoral, ‘The Farmer’s Ingle:’ I have a perfect contempt for all plagiarisms and imitations.” Motherwell tries to qualify the censure of his brother editor, by quoting Lockhart’s opinion—at once lofty and just, of this fine picture of domestic happiness and devotion.]

      I.

      My lov’d, my honour’d, much respected friend!

      No mercenary bard his homage pays;

      With honest pride, I scorn each selfish end:

      My dearest meed, a friend’s esteem and praise:

      To you I sing, in simple Scottish lays,

      The lowly train in life’s sequester’d scene;

      The native feelings strong, the guileless ways;

      What Aiken in a cottage would have been;

      Ah! tho’ his work unknown, far happier there, I ween!

      II.

      November chill blaws loud wi’ angry sugh;

      The short’ning winter-day is near a close;

      The miry beasts retreating frae the pleugh:

      The black’ning trains o’ craws to their repose:

      The toil-worn Cotter frae his labour goes,

      This night his weekly moil is at an end,

      Collects his spades, his mattocks, and his hoes,

      Hoping the morn in ease and rest to spend,

      And weary, o’er the moor, his course does homeward bend.

      III.

      At length his lonely cot appears in view,

      Beneath the shelter of an aged tree;

      Th’

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