The verse of Robert Burns


[Robbie

Detail from an unsigned, undated oil painting owned by Ancient Light Lodge No.88 in Delta, British Columbia. You can also download a grayscale version or silhouette.
Miscellanea

But to see her was to love her
Love but her, and love for ever.

Should auld acquaintance be forgot
And never brought to mind.

Gin a body meet a body
Coming through the rye;
Gin a body kiss a body–
Need a body cry?

A man’s a man for a’ that.

Green grow the rushes O,
Green grow the rushes O;
The sweetest hours that e’er I spend,
Are spent among the lasses O!

Some have meat and cannot eat,
Some cannot eat that want it;
But we have meat and we can eat,
Sae let the Lord be thankit.

A fig for those by law protected!
Liberty’s a glorious feast!
Courts for cowards were erected,
Churches built to please the priest.

Man’s inhumanity to man
Makes countless thousands mourn.

O my Luve’s like a red red rose,
That’s newly sprung in June:
O my Luve’s like the melodie,
That’s sweetly play’d in tune.

Liberty’s in every blow!
Let us do or die!

Nae man can tether time or tide.

O wad some Pow’r the giftie gie us,
To see oursels as others see us!
It wad frea mony a blunder free us,
And foolish notion.

The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men
Gang aft a-gley.

And my fause lover stole my rose,
But ah! he left the thorn wi’ me.

A man may drink an no be drunk;
A man may fight and no be slain;
A man may kiss a bonnie lass,
And aye be welcome back again.