For lords or kings I dinna mourn,
E'en let them die - for that they're born:
But Oh! prodigious to reflect!
A nither year is gane to wreck !
A Towmont, Sirs, is gane to wreck!
O Eighty eight, in thy sma' space
What dire events hae taken place!
Of what Enjoyments thou has reft us!
In what a pickle thou has left us!
The Spanish Empire's lost tint a head,
And my auld teeth less Bawtie's dead!
The tulzie's sair tween Pit & Fox,
And tween out Maggie's twa wee cocks,
The tane is game, a bludie devil
But to the Hen-birds unco civil;
The tither's unco something dour o' treadin,
But better stuff ne'er claw'd a midden.
And cry till ye be haerse & roupet
For Eight eight he wish'd you weel,
And gied ^you a baith gear & meal;
E'en mony a plack & mony a peck,
Ye ken yoursels for little feck
Ye bonie lasses dight your een
For some o' you hae tint a frien;
In Eighty eight, ye ken, was taen,
What ye'll ne'er hae to gie again.-
Observe the vera nowt & sheep
How douf & deviely they creep;
Nay even the yirth itsel does cry,
For Embrugh wells are grutten dry.-
O Eight-nine, thou's but a bairn,
And no o'er auld, I hope to learn!
Thou beardless boy I pray tak care;
Thou now has got thy daddie's chair,
Nae hand-cuff'd, mizzl'd, hap-shackl'd Regent,
But like himsel, a full free agent
Key details
- Archive number
- NTS/02/25/BRN/02/105
- Alt. number
- 3.6263
- Date
- 1 January 1789
- On display
- No
- Creator
- Burns, Robert (Author)
- Recipient
- Edinburgh Courant
- Archive number
- NTS/02/25/BRN/02/105
- Alt. number
- 3.6263
- Date
- 1 January 1789
- On display
- No
- Creator
- Burns, Robert (Author)
- Recipient
- Edinburgh Courant
Description
Elegy on the Year 1788. Begins: "For lords or kings I dinna mourn". "A Sketch"; 36 lines in rhymed couplets. A reflection on the year, a particularly awkward one in terms of the constitutional problem caused by the Regency crisis.
This poem was written on 1 January 1789 and sent to the Edinburgh Courant newspaper for publication. The work, which reflects on the events of the previous year, is preoccupied with the ongoing Regency Crisis. In November 1788 Parliament could not proceed as King George III was too mentally incapacitated to deliver his customary Speech at the opening of the session.
Archive information
Themes
Hierarchy
-
Robert Burns, collection of poems and songs
(
a sub-fonds is a subdivision in the archival material)
- Elegy on the Year 1788
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