ROBERT Burns, in Edinburgh in 1787 after the publication of the Kilmarnock Edition, ordered a tombstone for his tragic contemporary Robert Fergusson.
Here is part of the tributes he wrote to Fergusson (1751-1774). Both Rabbies and Robert Louis Stevenson will be commemorated in the Canongate Kirkyard this morning at 10.45am.
ON FERGUSSON
O thou, my elder brother in Misfortune,
By far my elder Brother in the muse,
With tears I pity thy unhappy fate!
Why is the Bard unfitted for the world,
Yet has so keen a relish of its Pleasures?
Ill-fated Genius! Heaven-taught Fergusson,
What heart that feels and will not yield a tear,
To think Life's sun did set e'er well begun
To shed its influence on thy bright career.
O why should truest Worth and Genius pine
Beneath the iron grasp of Want and Woe,
While titled knaves and idiot-greatness shine
In all the splendour Fortune can bestow?
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