---
title: "To Mr. Thomson"
author: "Robert Burns"
recipient: "Mr. Thomson"
letter_number: 312
roman: "CCCXII"
date: "May 1795"
source: "Project Gutenberg #18500 — The Complete Works of Robert Burns (ed. Allan Cunningham)"
editor: "Allan Cunningham"
source_url: "https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/18500/pg18500.txt"
canonical_url: "https://robert-burns.com/letters/312-to-thomson/"
---

# To Mr. Thomson

## Editor's note
The song of Caledonia, in honour of Mrs. Burns, was accompanied by two others in honour of the poet's mistress: the muse was high in song, and used few words in the letter which enclosed them.

— Allan Cunningham

## Letter
O stay, sweet warbling woodlark, stay![277]

Let me know, your very first leisure, how you like this song.

Long, long the night.[278]

How do you like the foregoing? The Irish air, "Humours of Glen," is a great favourite of mine, and as, except the silly stuff in the "Poor Soldier," there are not any decent verses for it, I have written for it as follows:—

Their groves o' sweet myrtle let foreign lands reckon.[279]

Let me hear from you.

R. B.

## Footnotes
277. Song CCXLIX.
278. Song CCL.
279. Song CCLI.

---

Source: [Project Gutenberg #18500 — The Complete Works of Robert Burns (ed. Allan Cunningham)](https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/18500/pg18500.txt), edited by Allan Cunningham  
Canonical HTML: https://robert-burns.com/letters/312-to-thomson/