Poems and Songs of Robert Burns

Chapter 144: Epigram On Rough Roads

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About This Book

The collection assembles lyrical songs, narrative poems, satirical pieces, epistles, epitaphs, and fragments that shift between convivial drinking verses, tender laments, and comic storytelling. Many lyrics were shaped to traditional airs and preserve vernacular speech, while longer works portray rural labor, domestic scenes, and compassionate encounters with animals. Satire targets religious hypocrisy and social pretension, and several poems take a direct, personal tone of moral reflection or affectionate address. The selections alternate moods and forms, emphasizing melodic phrasing and a versatile technical range.

Epigram On Rough Roads

I’m now arrived—thanks to the gods!— Thro’ pathways rough and muddy, A certain sign that makin roads Is no this people’s study: Altho’ Im not wi’ Scripture cram’d, I’m sure the Bible says That heedless sinners shall be damn’d, Unless they mend their ways. [Footnote 8: A compliment to the Montgomeries of Coilsfield, on the Feal or Faile, a tributary of the Ayr.] [Footnote 9: Mrs. Stewart of Stair, an early patroness of the poet.] [Footnote 10: The house of Professor Dugald Stewart.]