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Poem by Robert Burns


Verses Written under the Portrait of Fergusson


The poet, in a copy of that author’s works presented 
to a young lady in Edinburgh, March 19, 1787.

CURSE on ungrateful man, that can be pleas’d,
And yet can starve the author of the pleasure!
O thou, my elder brother in misfortune,
By far my elder brother in the Muses,
With tears I pity thy unhappy fate!
Why is the Bard unpitied by the world,
Yet has so keen a relish of its pleasures?



Robert Burns


Robert Burns's other poems:
  1. The Flowery Banks of Cree
  2. To a Young Lady, Miss Jessy Lewars, Dumfries, with Books which the Bard Presented her
  3. The Day Returns
  4. Canst Thou Leave Me Thus?
  5. As Down the Burn They Took Their Way


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