Why am I loath to leave this earthly scene? Have I so found it full of pleasing charms? Some drops of joy, with draughts of ill between; Some gleams of sunshine mid renewing storms. Is it departing pangs my soul alarms? Or Death's unlovely, dreary, dark abode? For guilt, for guilt, my terrors are in arms! I tremble to approach an angry God! And justly smart beneath his sin-avenging rod.
Fain would I say, Forgive my foul offence! Fain promise never more to disobey; But should my Author health again dispense, Again I might desert fair Virtue's way, Again in Folly's path might go astray, Again exalt the brute, and sink the man, Then how should I for heav'nly Mercy's pray, Who act so counter heav'nly Mercy's plan? Who sin so oft have mourn'd, yet no temptation ran!
O Thou Great Governor of all below! If I may dare a lifted eye to Thee, Thy nod can make the tempest cease to blow, Or still the tumult of the raging sea: With that controlling pow'r assist ev'n me. Those headlong furious passions to confine; For all unfit I feel my pow'rs to be, To rule their torrent in th' allowed line: O aid me with Thy help, Omnipotence Divine!
Divider from 'The Beauties of Burn's Poems' a chapbook printed in Falkirk in 1819
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