Jan 25, 1759 - Jul 21, 1796
a Scottish poet
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O Scotia! my dear, my native soil!<br />For whom my warmest wish to Heaven is sent
Such is the fate of simple Bard,<br />On life's rough ocean luckless starr'd
Dare to be honest and fear no labor. ... Opera is where a man gets stabbed in the back, and instead of dying, he sings.
How wretched is the person who hangs on by the favors of the powerful.
Apropos, is not the Scotch phrase 'Auld Lang Syne' exceedingly expressive? I shall give you the verses on the other sheet. The words of 'Auld Lang Syne' are good, but the music is an old air, the rudiments of the modern tune of that name. ... Dare to be honest and fear no labor. ... Opera is where a man gets stabbed in the back, and instead of dying, he sings. ... Chords that vibrate sweetest pleasure thrill the deepest notes of woe. ... Critics! Those cut-throat bandits in the paths of fame.
An atheist's laugh 's a poor exchange For Deity offended!
Some books are lies frae end to end.
I want someone to laugh with me, someone to be grave with me, someone to please me and help my discrimination with his or her own remark, and at times, no doubt, to admire my acuteness and penetration.
The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry.
My love is like a red, red rose That's newly sprung in June: My love is like the melody That's sweetly played in tune. How fair art thou, my bonnie lass, So deep in love am I; And I will love thee still, my dear, Till all the seas gang dry. Till all the seas gang dry, my dear, And the rocks melt with the sun; I will love thee still, my dear, While the sands of life shall run. And fare thee weel, my only love. And fare thee weel awhile! And I will come again, my love, Though it were ten thousand mile.
In durance vile 1here must I wake and weep, And all my frowsy couch in sorrow steep.
I waive the quantum o' the sin, The hazard of concealing; But, och! it hardens a' within, And petrifies the feeling!
Go fetch to me a pint o' wine, <br />An' fill it in a silver tassie.
God help the teacher, if a man of sensibility and genius, when a booby father presents him with his booby son, and insists on lighting up the rays of science in a fellow's head whose skull is impervious and inaccessible by any other way than a positive fracture with a cudgel.
Look abroad through Nature's range, Nature's mighty law is change.
Ah, gentle dames! it gars me greet To think how monie counsels sweet, How monie lengthened sage advices, The husband frae the wife despises.
To make three guineas do the work of five.
A mind that is conscious of its integrity scorns to say more than it means to perform.
To step aside is human.
For gold the merchant ploughs the main,<br />The farmer ploughs the manor.
Great for good, or great for evil.
Even every ray of hope destroyed and not a wish to gild the gloom.
God knows, I'm no the thing I should be, Nor am I even the thing I could be.
Nature's law, That man was made to mourn. Man's inhumanity to man Makes countless thousands mourn! O Death, the poor man's dearest friend, The kindest and the best!
The heart that is generous and kind most resembles God.
Ye Hypocrites, are these your pranks To murder men and gie God thanks Desist for shame, proceed no further God won't accept your thanks for murder.
His locked, lettered, braw brass collar, Shewed him the gentleman and scholar.
The best plans of men and mice often go awry.
[Scottish songs] are, I own, frequently wild, & unreduceable to the more modern rules; but on that very eccentricity, perhaps, depends a great part of their effect.
But Mousie, thou art no thy lane In proving foresight may be vain The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men Gang aft agley An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain For promis'd joy!