Robert Burns

Nature’s Law

LET other heroes boast their scars,
  The marks of sturt and strife;
And other poets sing of wars,
  The plagues of human life;
Shame fa’ the fun; wi’ sword and gun
  To slap mankind like lumber!
I sing his name and nobler fame,
  Wha multiplies our number.

Great Nature spoke, with air benign,
  ‘Go on, ye human race!
This lower world I you resign;
  Be fruitful and increase.
The liquid fire of strong desire
  I’ve pour’d it in each bosom;
Here, on this hand, does mankind stand,
  And there is Beauty’s blossom!’

The Hero of these artless strains,
  A lowly Bard was he,
Who sung his rhymes in Coila’s plains
  With meikie mirth an’ glee;
Kind Nature’s care had given his share,
  Large, of the flaming current;
And, all devout, he never sought
  To stem the sacred torrent.

He felt the powerful, high behest,
  Thrill, vital, thro’ and thro’;
And sought a correspondent breast
  To give obedience due;
Propitious Powers screen’d the young flow’rs,
  From mildews of abortion;
And lo! the bard, a great reward,
  Has got a double portion!

Auld, cantie Coil may count the day,
  As annual it returns,
The third of Libra’s equal sway,
  That gave another Burns,
With future rhymes, in other times,
  To emulate his sire;
To sing auld Coil in nobler style
  With more poetic fire.

Ye Powers of peace, and peaceful song,
  Look down with gracious eyes;
And bless auld Coila, large and long,
  With multiplying joys.
Long may she stand to prop the land,
  The flow’r of ancient nations;
And Burnses spring, her fame to sing,
  To endless generations!