Robert Burns war ein schottischer Dichter. Er verfasste zahlreiche Gedichte, politische Texte und Lieder. Sein bekanntestes Lied ist Auld Lang Syne, das inzwischen Teil der britischen Tradition geworden ist. Burns, der auch Werke in seinem Heimatdialekt Scots verfasste, gilt, neben Walter Scott, als schottischer Nationaldichter. Bis heute wird ihm in seiner Heimat eine große Verehrung entgegengebracht, etwa im Rahmen des alljährlichen Burns Supper am 25. Januar. Wikipedia
„Mein Herz ist im Hochland, mein Herz ist nicht hier!“
-Mein Herz ist im Hochland, übersetzt von Ferdinand Freiligrath, in: Komm, leb mit mir, Silva Verlag Iserlohn 1947, S. 57
Original engl.: "My heart´s in the Highlands, my heart is not here"
“Now a' is done that men can do,
And a' is done in vain.”
It Was A' for Our Rightfu' King, st. 2
Johnson's The Scots Musical Museum (1787-1796)
A Man's A Man For A' That, st. 3-5 (1795)
“Stern Ruin's plowshare drives elate,
Full on thy bloom.”
To a Mountain Daisy, st. 9 (1786)
“In durance vile here must I wake and weep,
And all my frowsy couch in sorrow steep.”
Epistle from Esopus to Maria
Posthumous Pieces (1799)
“Perhaps it may turn out a sang,
Perhaps turn out a sermon.”
Stanza 1
Epistle to a Young Friend (1786)
“He wales a portion with judicious care;
And "Let us worship God" he says, with solemn air.”
Stanza 12
The Cotter's Saturday Night (1786)
“God knows, I'm no the thing I should be,
Nor am I even the thing I could be.”
To The Reverend John M'Math, st. 8
Posthumous Pieces (1799)
On the Late Captain Grose's Peregrinations Thro' Scotland, st. 1 (1793)
The Banks o' Doon, st. 1
Johnson's The Scots Musical Museum (1787-1796)
“Beneath the milk-white thorn that scents the evening gale.”
Stanza 9
The Cotter's Saturday Night (1786)
Handsome Nell (1773) (also known as "My Handsome Nell"), st. 6.
Johnson's The Scots Musical Museum (1787-1796)
The Jolly Beggars, chorus
Posthumous Pieces (1799)
“The white moon is setting behind the white wave,
And Time is setting with me, O!”
Misquotation by W. B. Yeats of Burns's "Open the Door to me, Oh" http://www.robertburns.org/works/397.shtml (1793) in Ideas of good and evil (1907), p. 241; the original reads: "The wan Moon is setting beyond the white wave,/ And Time is setting with me, oh!"
Misattributed
“O Mary, at thy window be!
It is the wished, the trysted hour.”
Mary Morison, st. 1 (1793)
Here's a Health to Them That's Awa, st. 1
Posthumous Pieces (1799)
“This day, Time winds th' exhausted chain,
To run the twelvemonth's length again.”
New Year's Day, st. 1 (1790)
“And may you better reck the rede,
Than ever did the adviser!”
Stanza 11.
Epistle to a Young Friend (1786)
Address to the Unco Guid, st. 7 (1787)
“Perhaps Dundee's wild-warbling measures rise,
Or plaintive Martyrs, worthy of the name.”
Stanza 13
The Cotter's Saturday Night (1786)
“Some wee short hours ayont the twal.”
Death and Dr. Hornbook.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
“Affliction's sons are brothers in distress;
A brother to relieve,—how exquisite the bliss!”
A Winter Night.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
“Man's inhumanity to man
Makes countless thousands mourn.
Man was made to Mourn.”
Man was Made to Mourn (1786)
