Poems (Angier)/Ode to Robert Burns

by Annie Lanman Angier

ODE TO ROBERT BURNS.

On this thy birthday, poet, sage, and seer,
We meet and greet, while blend the smile and tear;
A smile, that such as thou hast walked with men,
Tear, that we ne'er shall see thy like again.

What though a hundred years have passed away
Since first was welcomed in thy natal day?
Some records live which time can ne'er efface,
And thine is one—beloved of all thy race.

Thy songs are sung in cot and princely hall,
In valleys green, on snow-capped mountains tall;
The rich and poor, the lowly and the high,
His name embalm whose fame can never die.

Thy themes so wisely chosen, age and youth
By them are won to loyalty and truth;
And though thy pen hath sometimes made a slip,—
Whose words are always right? and whose the lip

That ever wisely speaking, ne'er hath erred?
Ah! whose the stolid breast that is not stirred
By thy own epitaph, so tender, true,
Bright sparkling, pure as drops of crystal dew?

Thine was the honest "frater-feeling" strong,
That e'er the right approved, condemned the wrong;
And thine the manly, gentle heart, that knew
Life's sweetness, and its bitter sorrows, too.

Fair Scotia's bard of "Auld lang syne"—
Thy urn with laurel leaves we twine;
And at thy feet this wild flower lay—
Sage, poet, seer of Alloway.