---
title: "Epistle to Colonel De Peyster"
author: "Robert Burns"
form: "Poem"
year: "1796"
location: "Dumfries"
source: "Project Gutenberg #1279 — Poems and Songs of Robert Burns"
source_url: "https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/1279/pg1279.txt"
canonical_url: "https://robert-burns.com/poems/epistle-to-colonel-de-peyster/"
---

# Epistle to Colonel De Peyster

## Poem
My honor’d Colonel, deep I feel  
Your interest in the Poet’s weal;  
Ah! now sma’ heart hae I to speel  
The steep Parnassus,  
Surrounded thus by bolus pill,  
And potion glasses.

O what a canty world were it,  
Would pain and care and sickness spare it;  
And Fortune favour worth and merit  
As they deserve;  
And aye rowth o’ roast-beef and claret,  
Syne, wha wad starve?

Dame Life, tho’ fiction out may trick her,  
And in paste gems and frippery deck her;  
Oh! flickering, feeble, and unsicker  
I’ve found her still,  
Aye wavering like the willow-wicker,  
’Tween good and ill.

Then that curst carmagnole, auld Satan,  
Watches like baudrons by a ratton  
Our sinfu’ saul to get a claut on,  
Wi’felon ire;  
Syne, whip! his tail ye’ll ne’er cast saut on,  
He’s aff like fire.

Ah Nick! ah Nick! it is na fair,  
First showing us the tempting ware,  
Bright wines, and bonie lasses rare,  
To put us daft  
Syne weave, unseen, thy spider snare  
O hell’s damned waft.

Poor Man, the flie, aft bizzes by,  
And aft, as chance he comes thee nigh,  
Thy damn’d auld elbow yeuks wi’joy  
And hellish pleasure!  
Already in thy fancy’s eye,  
Thy sicker treasure.

Soon, heels o’er gowdie, in he gangs,  
And, like a sheep-head on a tangs,  
Thy girning laugh enjoys his pangs,  
And murdering wrestle,  
As, dangling in the wind, he hangs,  
A gibbet’s tassel.

But lest you think I am uncivil  
To plague you with this draunting drivel,  
Abjuring a’ intentions evil,  
I quat my pen,  
The Lord preserve us frae the devil!  
Amen! Amen!

---

Source: [Project Gutenberg #1279 — Poems and Songs of Robert Burns](https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/1279/pg1279.txt)  
Canonical HTML: https://robert-burns.com/poems/epistle-to-colonel-de-peyster/