THE BALLAD OF RABBIE BURNS - damowords

But written down! No, not a jot
A poet drown’d in his life’s lot
Chain’d to the daily porridge pot
Ne’er knowing meat
& only ma’s broth, thick hot,
He loved to eat
Rab felt he was a galley slave
Bullwhipp’d to plough the foaming wave
From early morn to early grave
Without respite
& escaping in books did crave
Come candl’d night
& foregether’d with family
They shared old sangs & poetry
Or snippeting thro history
From Bruce to Rome
For Burns was luckily bless’d wi’
A braw Scotch home
Rab soon absorbed his ain zeitgeist
Learnt of the goods ilk cotter priced
Read Grecian gods & Jesus Christ
Kenn’d ailments sair
But not yet how hearts crush’d & sliced
By maiden’s fair
Until the lad had turn’d sixteen
At harvest coupling, when his e’en
Was fill’d with fairest country queen
One autumn less
She was the fairest he had seen
In dance & dress