The Memory of Burns

Read on January 25, 1859 at the Boston celebration of the one-hundredth anniversary of Robert Burns' death

How sweetly come the holy psalms From Saints and martyrs down, The waving of triumphal palms Above the thorny crown! The choral praise, the chanted prayers From harps by angels strung, The hunted Cameron's mountain airs, The hymns that Luther sung!

Yet, jarring not the heavenly notes, The sounds of earth are heard, As through the open minster floats The song of breeze and bird! Not less the wonder of the sky That daisies bloom below; The brook sings on, though lound and high The cloudy organs blow!

And, if the tender ear be jarred That, haply, hears by turns The saintly harp of Olney's bard, The pastoral pipe of Burns, No discord mars His perfect plan Who gave them both a tongue; For he who sings the love of man The love of God hath sung!

To-day be every fault forgiven Of him in whom we joy! We take, with thanks, the gold of Heaven And leave the earth's alloy.