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The memory of Burns—a name
That calls, when brimmed her festal cup,
A nation’s glory and her shame,
In silent sadness up.

A nation’s glory—be the rest
Forgot—she’s canonized his mind;
And it is joy to speak the best
We may of human kind.

I’ve stood beside the cottage-bed
Where the Bard-peasant first drew breath;
A straw-thatched roof above his head,
A straw-wrought couch beneath.

And I have stood beside the pile,
His monument—that tells to Heaven
The homage of earth’s proudest isle
To that Bard-peasant given!

Bid thy thoughts hover o’er that spot,
Boy-minstrel, in thy dreaming hour;
And know, however low his lot,
A Poet’s pride and power:

The pride that lifted Burns from earth,
The power that gave a child of song
Ascendency o’er rank and birth,
The rich, the brave, the strong;