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Ae fond kiss, and then we sever!A farewell, and then forever!Deep in heart-wrung tears I'll pledge thee,Warring sighs and groans I'll wage thee.Who shall say that Fortune grieves him,While the star of hope she leaves him?Me, nae cheerful twinkle lights me,Dark despair around benights me. - Ae Fond Kiss.
Topic: Literature
Source: None
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But to see her was to love her, Love but her, and love forever.
Topic: Love
Source: None
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My dear, my native soil!
For whom my warmest wish to Heav'n is sent,
Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil
Be blest with health, and peace, and sweet content!
Topic: Love of Country
Source: Cotter's Saturday Night (st. 20)
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A man's a man for a' that!
Topic: Man
Source: For A' That and A' That
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A prince can mak a belted knight,
A marquis, duke, and a' that;
But an honest man's aboon his might:
Guid faith, he maunna fa' that.
Topic: Man
Source: For A' That and A' That
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The rank is but the guinea's stamp,
The man's the gowd for a' that.
Topic: Man
Source: For A' That and A' That
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Man,--whose heaven-erected face
The smiles of love adorn,--
Man's inhumanity to man
Makes countless thousands mourn!
Topic: Man
Source: Man Was Made to Mourn
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Cursed be the man, the poorest wretch in life,
The crouching vassal, to the tyrant wife,
Who has no will but by her high permission;
Who has not sixpence but in her possession;
Who must to her his dear friend's secret tell;
Who dreads a curtain lecture worse than hell.
Were such the wife had fallen to my part,
I'd break her spirit or I'd break her heart.
Topic: Matrimony
Source: The Henpecked Husband
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The mother may forget the child
That smiles sae sweetly on her knee;
But I'll remember thee, Glencairn,
And all that thou hast done for me!
Topic: Memory
Source: Lament for Glencairn
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As Tammie glow'red, amazed and curious,
The mirth and fun grew fast and furious.
Topic: Merriment
Source: Tam o' Shanter
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That hour o' night's black arch the keystane.
Topic: Midnight
Source: Tam o' Shanter
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When chill November's surly blast make fields and forest bare.
Topic: Nature
Source: None
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Facts are cheels that winna ding,
An' downs be disputed.
Topic: Opinion
Source: A Dream
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Beneath the milk-white thorn that scents the evening gale.
from the poem
The Cotter’s Saturday Night.
Topic: Pain
Source: None
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Or were I in the wildest waste,
Sae bleak and bare, sae bleak and bare,
The desert were a paradise
If thou wert there, if thou were there.
Topic: Paradise
Source: Oh! Wert Thou in the Cold Blast
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John Anderson, my jo, John,
When we were first acquent,
Your locks were like the raven,
Your bonny brow was brent.
Topic: Past
Source: John Anderson
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Be Briton still to Britain true,
Among oursel's united;
For never but by British hands
Maun British wrangs be righted.
Topic: Patriotism
Source: Dumfries Volunteers
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But pleasures are like poppies spread;
You seize the flower, its bloom is shed.
Or like the snow falls in the river,
A moment white--then melts forever.
Topic: Pleasure
Source: Tam o' Shanter (l. 59)
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They never sought in vain that sought the Lord aright!
Topic: Prayer
Source: The Cotter's Saturday Night (st. 6)
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Hear how he clears the points o' Faith
Wi' rattling an' thumpin'!
Now meekly calm, now wild in wrath,
He's stampin', and he's jumpin'!
Topic: Preaching
Source: Holy Fair (st. 13)
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In durance vile here must I wake and weep,
And all my frowsy couch in sorrow steep.
Topic: Prison
Source: Epistle from Esopus to Maria, in Chambers' "Burns' Life and Work", vol. IV, p. 54
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Then gently scan your brother man,
Still gentler sister woman;
Though they may gang a' kennin' wrang
To step aside is human.
Topic: Proverbs
Source: Address to Unco Guid
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Man's inhumanity to man
Makes countless thousands mourn!
Topic: Proverbs
Source: Man Was Made to Mourn
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Inspiring bold John Barleycorn,
What dangers thou canst make us scorn!
Wi' tippenny, we fear nae evil;
Wi' usquebae, we'll face the devil!
Topic: Proverbs
Source: Tam o' Shanter (l. 105)
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O wad some power the giftie gie us
To see oursel's as ithers see us!
It wad frae monie a blunder free us.
And foolish notion;
What airs in dress and gait wad lea'e us,
And ev'n devotion!
Topic: Proverbs
Source: To a Louse
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Whistle, and I'll come to you, my lad.
Topic: Proverbs
Source: Whistle, and I'll Come to You (act IV, sc. 4)
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An Atheist's laugh's a poor exchange
For Deity offended!
Topic: Religion
Source: Epistle to a Young Friend
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G-- knows I'm no the thing I should be,
Nor am I even the thing I could be,
But twenty times I rather would be
An atheist clean,
Than under gospel colours hid be,
Just for a screen.
Topic: Religion
Source: Epistle to Rev. John M'Math (st. 8)
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Farewell, my friends! farewell, my foes!
My peace with these, my love with those.
The bursting tears my heart declare;
Farewell, the bonnie banks of Ayr.
Topic: Rivers
Source: The Banks of Ayr
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Flow gently, sweet Afton, among thy green braes,
Flow gently, I'll sing thee a song in thy praise.
Topic: Rivers
Source: Flow Gently, Sweet Afton
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Ayr, gurgling, kissed his pebbled shore,
O'erhung with wild woods, thickening green;
The fragrant birch and hawthorn hoar
Twined amorous round the raptures scene.
Topic: Rivers
Source: To Mary in Heaven
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I'll pu' the budding rose, when Phoebus peeps in view,
For its like a baumy kiss o'er her sweet bonnie mou'!
Topic: Roses
Source: The Posie
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Yon rose-buds in the morning-dew,
How pure amang the leaves sae green!
Topic: Roses
Source: To Chloris
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O Scotia! my dear, my native soil!
For whom my warmest wish to heaven is sent;
Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil
Be blest with health, and peace, and sweet content.
Topic: Scotland
Source: Cotter's Saturday Night (st. 20)
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It's guid to be merry and wise,
It's guid to be honest and true,
It's guid to support Caledonia's cause,
And bide by the buff and the blue!
Topic: Scotland
Source: Here's a Health to Them that's Awa'
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Hear, Land o' Cakes, and brither Scots,
Frae Maidenkirk to Johnie Groat's;-
If there's a hole in a' your coats,
I rede you tent it:
A chield's amang you takin notes,
And, faith, he'll prent it.
Topic: Scotland
Source: On Captain Grose's Peregrinations Thro' Scotland
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When chill November's surly blast make fields and forest bare.
Topic: Seasons
Source: None
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Prudent, cautious self-control Is wisdom's root.
Topic: Self-control
Source: None
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Chords that vibrate sweetest pleasure
Thrill the deepest notes of wo.
Topic: Sensibility
Source: Sweet Sensibility
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I waive the quantum o' the sin,
The hazard of concealing:
But, och! it hardens a' within,
And petrifies the feeling!
Topic: Sin
Source: Epistle to a Young Friend
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Morality, thou deadly bane,Thy tens o' thousands thou has slain!
Topic: Society
Source: None
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Now Nature hangs her mantle green
On every blooming tree,
And spreads her sheets o' daisies white
Out o'er the grassy lea.
Topic: Spring
Source: Lament of Mary Queen of Scots
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Now simmer blinks on flowery braes,
And o'er the crystal streamlet plays.
Topic: Summer
Source: The Birks of Aberfeldy
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What's a' your jargon o' your schools,
Your Latin names for horns and stools;
If honest nature made you fools.
Topic: Teaching
Source: Epistle to J.L. -----k
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What's done we partly may compute,
But know not what's resisted.
Topic: Temptation
Source: Address to Unco Guild (st. 8)
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Some wee short hour ayont the twal.
Topic: Time
Source: Death and Mr. Hornbook
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Nae man can tether time or tide.
Topic: Time
Source: Tam o' Shanter
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Some hae meat, and canna eat,
And some wad eat that want it;
But we hae meat, and we can eat,
And sae the Lord be thankit.
Topic: Toasts
Source: The Selkirk Grace, as often attributed to him, but probably not his
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There is no such uncertainty as a sure thing.
Topic: Uncertainty
Source: None
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Oh, wad some power the giftie gie us
To see oursel's as ithers see us!
It wad frae monie a blunder free us,
And foolish notion.
Topic: Vanity
Source: To a Louse
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