#Wreaths dooble full

Prates=talks too much in a boring or silly wayĪndrew Lang (1844 - 1912) was educated at both Edinburgh and Oxford universities and was one of the ablest and versatile writers of his day. The Eights=rowing boat with crew of eight Responsions=first examination for BA degree at Oxford University When the flower of the chestnut is splendid,Īnd when note-books are cover'd with rhyme, Clearly this was a light-hearted suggestion for academic reorganization. This poem by Andrew Lang (1844 - 1912) is sub-titled, somewhat pedantically: 'Being a Petition, in the form of a Ballade, praying the University Commissioners to spare the Summer Term.' Lang, who was a student at Edinburgh as well as Balliol College Oxford, was later a fellow of Merton College at Oxford. Sweeps his lean fingers through our hair,Īnd watch the crowds that sway and shock The reference in the poem to 'Alnaschar' is a character in The Arabian Nights whose dreams of wealth are shattered when he wakes up and knocks over and breaks the glassware he had hoped to sell in order to make his fortune! Instead, it is very positive about the 'dreams seen through tobacco smoke'. This poem by Alexander Anderson was written long before concerns about tobacco and passive smoking. Gods, grant or withhold it your 'yea' and your 'nay'Īre immutable, heedless of outcry of ours:īut life IS worth living, and here we would stay With the sea-weed in summer, ye bountiful powers!Īnd I'd leave all the hurry, the noise, and the fray, Where the waves can be surly in winter, and play O grant me a house by the beach of a bay, With a speed to which that of the tempest is tame)! (As mortals count pleasure who rush through their day Oh! grant me a life without pleasure or blame

The maiden wild roses will wreathe for the Hours īut the wise man will ask, ere libation he pay, Like the people of Athens, agnostics are they Philosophers kneel to the God without name, Inventors may bow to the God that is lame,Īnd crave from the fire on his stithy a ray

#Wreaths dooble full

To Pan and to Pallas his incense he showers,Īnd his humble petition puts up day by day,įor a house full of books, and a garden of flowers. The sage has found out a more excellent way. Or courting Queen Venus, that affable dame, Or praying to know that for which they should pray, While others are asking for beauty or fame, So it is not surprising that one of his many poems should be on the subject of 'True Wisdom'. The man was as drunk as a mortal could be!Īndrew Lang (1844 - 1912) was very much an academic and a scholar who worked hard to transform information into knowledge and knowledge into wisdom. Yet it wasna through riches, it wasna through lear īut I fand out the cause ere I left the sweet Dee. Sae canty, sae crouse, an' sae proof against care 'Twas heartsome to see the auld body sae gay,

Yet though beggared his ha' an' deserted his lea,Ĭontented he roamed on the banks o' the Dee. When young, he had plenty o owsen an' kyeīut cauld was his hearth ere his youdith was o'er,Īn' he delved on the landss he had lairdit before Than the man that I met on the banks o' the Dee. Though Time had bedrizzled his haffits wi' snaw,Īn' Fortune had stown his luckpenny awa', Here is a poem by George Outram which tells of a man who is as happy as can be, walking on the banks of the river Dee, despite his obvious misfortunes - and then explains why! The meanings of words which may not be familiar are listed at the end.

Here pause - and, thro the starting tear, Of course, the actual publication and success of his book of 'Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect' changed his plans completely. So it is perhaps understandable that the last poem in the Kilmarnock edition of his poems was this epitaph, in which he acknowledges his 'thoughtless follies'. Burns then decided to make a new life by sailing to Jamaica. When he was preparing to publish the first edition of his poems, Robert Burns was having an affair with Jean Armour - much to the distress of her family.