Poem by Robert Burns

Ode, Sacred to the Memory of Mrs. Oswald

DWELLER in yon dungeon dark,
Hangman of creation! mark
Who in widow-weeds appears,
Laden with unhonour’d years,
Noosing with care a bursting purse,
Baited with many a deadly curse!

        STROPHE.

View the wither’d beldam’s face-
Can thy keen inspection trace
Aught of humanity’s sweet melting grace?
Note that eye, ‘tis rheum o’erflows,
Pity’s flood there never rose.
See those hands, ne’er stretch’d to save
Hands that took-but never gave.
Keeper of Mammon’s iron chest,
Lo, there she goes, unpitied and unblest;
She goes, but not to realms of everlasting rest!

        ANTISTROPHE.

Plunderer of armies, lift thine eyes
(Awhile forbear, ye torturing fiends!)-
Seest thou whose step unwilling hither bends?
No fallen angel, hurl’d from upper skies;
‘Tis thy trusty quondam mate,
Doom’d to share thy fiery fate,
She, tardy, hell-ward plies.

        EPODE.

And are they of no more avail,
Ten thousand glitt’ring pounds a year?
In other worlds can Mammon fail,
Omnipotent as he is here?
O, bitter mock’ry of the pompous bier,
While down the wretched vital part is driv’n!
The cave-lodg’d beggar, with a conscience clear,
Expires in rags, unknown, and goes to Heav’n.

1. I Gaed a Waefu' Gate Yestreen
2. Gala Water
3. Stay My Charmer
4. Blythe Was She
5. The Flowery Banks of Cree

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