Page:Halleck.djvu/47

And Burns—though brief the race he ran,
Though rough and dark the path he trod,
Lived—died—in form and soul a Man,
The image of his God.

Through care, and pain, and want, and woe,
With wounds that only death could heal,
Tortures—the poor alone can know,
The proud alone can feel;

He kept his honesty and truth,
His independent tongue and pen,
And moved, in manhood as in youth,
Pride of his fellow-men.

Strong sense, deep feeling, passions strong,
A hate of tyrant and of knave,
A love of right, a scorn of wrong,
Of coward and of slave;

A kind, true heart, a spirit high,
That could not fear and would not bow,
Were written in his manly eye
And on his manly brow.

Praise to the bard! his words are driven,
Like flower-seeds by the far winds sown,
Where’er, beneath the sky of heaven,
The birds of fame have flown.