Robert Burns (1759–1796). Poems and Songs.
The Harvard Classics. 1909–14.

202 . On the Death of Robert Dundas, Esq., of Arniston

LONE on the bleaky hills the straying flocks

Shun the fierce storms among the sheltering rocks;

Down from the rivulets, red with dashing rains,

The gathering floods burst o’er the distant plains;

Beneath the blast the leafless forests groan;

The hollow caves return a hollow moan.

Ye hills, ye plains, ye forests, and ye caves,

Ye howling winds, and wintry swelling waves!

Unheard, unseen, by human ear or eye,

Sad to your sympathetic glooms I fly;

Where, to the whistling blast and water’s roar,

Pale Scotia’s recent wound I may deplore.

O heavy loss, thy country ill could bear!

A loss these evil days can ne’er repair!

Justice, the high vicegerent of her God,

Her doubtful balance eyed, and sway’d her rod:

Hearing the tidings of the fatal blow,

She sank, abandon’d to the wildest woe.

Wrongs, injuries, from many a darksome den,

Now, gay in hope, explore the paths of men:

See from his cavern grim Oppression rise,

And throw on Poverty his cruel eyes;

Keen on the helpless victim see him fly,

And stifle, dark, the feebly-bursting cry:

Mark Ruffian Violence, distained with crimes,

Rousing elate in these degenerate times,

View unsuspecting Innocence a prey,

As guileful Fraud points out the erring way:

While subtle Litigation’s pliant tongue

The life-blood equal sucks of Right and Wrong:

Hark, injur’d Want recounts th’ unlisten’d tale,

And much-wrong’d Mis’ry pours the unpitied wail!

Ye dark waste hills, ye brown unsightly plains,

Congenial scenes, ye soothe my mournful strains:

Ye tempests, rage! ye turbid torrents, roll!

Ye suit the joyless tenor of my soul.

Life’s social haunts and pleasures I resign;

Be nameless wilds and lonely wanderings mine,

To mourn the woes my country must endure—

That would degenerate ages cannot cure.