ROBERT Burns was widely admired by distinguished fellow poets in the decades after his death.

William Wordsworth was greatly moved when he visited Burns's grave in 1803 on a tour of Scotland. Here are some of the central verses of the poem he wrote afterwards.

from AT THE GRAVE OF BURNS

Fresh as the flower, whose modest worth

He sang, his genius "glinted" forth,

Rose like a star that touching earth,

For so it seems,

Doth glorify its humble birth

With matchless beams.

The piercing eye, the thoughtful brow,

The struggling heart, where be they now?

Full soon the Aspirant of the plough,

The prompt, the brave,

Slept, with the obscurest, in the low

And silent grave.

I mourned with thousands, but as one

More deeply grieved, for he was gone

Whose light I hailed when first it shone,

And showed my youth

How Verse may build a princely throne

On humble truth.

Alas! where'er the current tends,

Regret pursues and with it blends,

Huge Criffel's hoary top ascends

By Skiddaw seen,

Neighbours we were, and loving friends

We might have been. . .