The voice of woe, & wild despair!
Awake, resound thy latest lay,
Then sleep in silence evermair!
And thou, my last, best, only friend,
That fillest an untimely tomb,
Accept this tribute from the bard
Thou brought'st frae fortune's mirkest gloom. ----
In Poverty's lone, barren vale,
Thick mists, obscure, involv'd me round;
Tho' oft I turn'd the wistful e'e
Nae ray o' fame was to be found:
Thou found'st me, like the morning sun
That melts the fogs in limpid air;
The friendless bard, & rustic song,
Became alike thy fostering care. ----
O why has worth so short a date!
While villains ripen, grey, with time,
Must thou, the noble, generous, great,
Fall in bold manhood's hardy prime!
Why did I live to see that day,
A day to me so full of woe!
O, had I met the mortal shaft
That laid my benefactor low!
The
That lang has stood the wind & rain;
But now has come a cruel blast,
And my last hald of earth is gane:
Nae leaf o' mine shall greet the spring,
Nae simmer sun exalt my bloom;
But I maun lie before the storm,
And others plant them in my room. ----
I've seen sae mony changeful years,
On earth I am a stranger grown;
I wander in the ways o' men,
Alike unknowing & unknown:
Unheard, unpitied, unreliev'd,
I bear alane my lade o' care;
For low lie a; in silent dust
That wad my pains & sorrows share.
And last, the sum of a' my griefs,
My Noble Master lies in clay;
The flower amang our barons bold,
His Country's pride, his Country's stay:
In weary being now I pine,
For all the life o' life is dead,
And Hope has left my aged ken,
On forward wing for ever fled. ----
Awake
![](https://ciim-data.nts.org.uk/media/iiif/3/pf%2F2%2F1%2F40%2F387%2FNTSBRNp06297.ptif/full/!640,640/0/default.jpg)
Key details
- Archive number
- NTS/02/25/BRN/02/13
- Alt. number
- 3.6109
- Date
- 1791
- On display
- Yes
- Creator
- Burns, Robert (Author)
- Recipient
- Cunningham, James, Earl of Glencairn
- Archive number
- NTS/02/25/BRN/02/13
- Alt. number
- 3.6109
- Date
- 1791
- On display
- Yes
- Creator
- Burns, Robert (Author)
- Recipient
- Cunningham, James, Earl of Glencairn
Description
Lament for James, Earl of Glencairn. 10 eight-line verses, Begins: "The wind blew hollow frae the hills".
Burns produced this elegy for his Patron the Earl of Glencairn, who died unmarried at the early age of 42 shortly after returning from a trip to Lisbon which had failed to cure his ailing health. He reminiscences on Glencairns' great worth and how he 'discovered' Burns.
He then contrasts the renewal that nature will follow in due course to the relics of growth but nothing will renew his downcast spirit. He compares himself to an aged tree whose roots have been torn from the earth by a terrible storm never to grow again. His is a wandering lonely soul in an unknown land, left to bear his grief in solitude.
Burns is still grieving for the man who was a power for good in the land. The light has gone out of Burns's life, leaving him feeling old and mortified. He calls forth his poetic powers for just one more soaring tribute to his dead friend.
Lastly, he looks back to his past of poverty and obscurity from which Glencairn raised him. ‘Why should the good die young while villains prosper,’ he asks. Burns regrets outliving his friend and describes certain memorable happenings which might be forgotten before he could ever forget James, Earl of Glencairn.
Glencairn, who had been a fan of the Kilmarnock Edition of Burns's poems, greeted Burns shortly after his arrival in Edinburgh in November 1787. Glencairn introduced Burns to Creech the publisher and encouraged the Caledonian Hunt members to subscribe to the second edition. Burns saw Glencairn as his 'Titular protector' and named his third son after him.
Archive information
Themes
Hierarchy
-
Robert Burns, collection of poems and songs
(
a sub-fonds is a subdivision in the archival material)
- Lament for James, Earl of Glencairn
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