| Andrew Macphail, comp. The Book of Sorrow. 1916. | | | XXVIII. Loneliness
‘It ’s an owercome sooth’ | | By Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894) |
| | | IT ’S an owercome sooth for age an’ youth, | |
| And it brooks wi’ nae denial, | |
| That the dearest friends are the auldest friends, | |
| And the young are just on trial. | |
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| There ’s a rival bauld wi’ young an’ auld, | 5 |
| And it ’s him that has bereft me; | |
| For the surest friends are the auldest friends, | |
| And the maist o’ mines hae left me. | |
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| There are kind hearts still, for friends to fill | |
| And fools to take and break them; | 10 |
| But the nearest friends are the auldest friends, | |
| And the grave ’s the place to seek them. | | | | |
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