Poems and Songs of Robert Burns

Chapter 174: Song—A Bottle And Friend

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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.

Song—A Bottle And Friend

There’s nane that’s blest of human kind, But the cheerful and the gay, man, Fal, la, la, &c. Here’s a bottle and an honest friend! What wad ye wish for mair, man? Wha kens, before his life may end, What his share may be o’ care, man? Then catch the moments as they fly, And use them as ye ought, man: Believe me, happiness is shy, And comes not aye when sought, man. Lines Written Under The Picture Of The Celebrated Miss Burns Cease, ye prudes, your envious railing, Lovely Burns has charms—confess: True it is, she had one failing, Had a woman ever less?