 | The Poetry of Real Life |  |
ON BURNS, THE POET AND EXCISEMAN.
Ye gave him, when he asked for bread, a stone:And, when he asked for love, indifference:
And, when for recognition, insolence
And cold denial: till his fame had grown
His justification—when, to atone
Too late for all these wrongs, and show your sense
Of worth, ye gave him a few pounds and pence,
Still measuring his merits by your own.
O Nation, that hast set thy heart on gold,
And “Useful” deem'st but what subserves thereto,
Thou gain'dst so an exciseman, and didst hold
It gain, although it cost a poet true;
So didst thou make him “useful” in the old,
False ways, whom God had sent to teach thee new!
| The Poetry of Real Life | |