Rabbie Burns Poems

Ode (For Hibernia's Sons)

No Spartan Tube, no attic shell,
No lyre Aeolian I awake,
'Tis Liberty's bold note I swell:
Thy Harp, Hibernia, let me take!
See gathering thousands while I sing,
A broken chain, exulting, bring
And dash it in a tyrant's face,
And dare him to his very beard,
And tell him he is no more fear'd,
No more the despot of Hibernia's race!
A tyrant's proudest insults brav'd,
Ye shout a People freed! They hail a nation sav'd!
Where is Man's godlike form!
Where is that brow erect and bold,
That eye that can, unmoved, behold,
The wildest rage, the loudest storm,
That e'er created fury dared to raise!
Avaunt! thou caitiff, servile base,
That tremblest at a Despot's nod,
Yet, crouching under th' iron rod,
Canst laud the arm that strick th' insulting blow!
Art thou of man's imperial line?
Doest boast that countenance divine?
Each skulking feature answers, No!
But come, ye sons of Liberty,
Hibernia's offspring, brave as free,
In danger's hour still flaming in the van:
Ye know, and dare maintain, The Royalty of Man.


Humanity: An Ode.

Blow, blow, ye winds! with heavier gust!
And freeze, thou bitter-biting frost!
Descend, ye chilly, smothering snows!
Not all your rage, united, shews
More hard unkindness, unrelenting,
Vengeful malice, unrepenting,
Than heav'n-illumin'd Man on brother Man bestows! ?
See stern Oppressions iron lip,
See mad Ambition's gory hand,
Sending like blood-hounds from the slip,
Woe, Want and Murder, o'er a land!
Even in the peaceful, rural vale,
Truth, weeping, tells the mournful tale,
How Luxury, with Flattery by her side,
The parasite, empoisoning her ear,
With all the servile wretches in the rear,
Looks o'er proud Property extended wide;
And eyes the simple, lowly hind,
Whose toil upholds the glittering show,
A creature of another kind,
Some coarser substance, unrefin'd,
Plac'd for her Lordly use thus vile below!
Where, where, is Love's fond, tender throe,
With lordly Honour's lofty brow,
The powers you proudly own?
Is there, beneath Love's noble name,
Can harbour, dark, the selfish aim,
To bless himself alone? ?
Mark Maiden-Innocence, a prey
To love-pretending snares:
This boasted honour turns away,
Shunning soft Pity's rising sway,
Regardless all of tears, and unavailing prayers.
Perhaps this hour, in misery's squalid nest,
She strains your infant to her joyless breast,
And with a mother's fears shrinks at the rocking blast!
O ye! who sunk in beds of down, (1)
Feel not a want but what yourselves create,
Think, for a moment, on his hapless fate,
Whom friends and fortune quite disown!
Ill-satisfy'd keen Hunger's clamorous call,
Stretched on his straw he lays himself to sleep,
While through the ragged roof, and chinky wall,
Chill, o'er his slumbers, falls the drifty heap!
Think on the dungeon's grim confine,
Think on the terrors of the mine,
Where Guilt and poor Misfortune pine!
Guilt, erring Man, relenting view!
Nor let thy legal rage pursue
The wretch, already beaten low
By dire Misfortune's undeserved blow!
Afflictions sons are brothers in distress;
A brother then relieve, and God the deed shall bless.