---
title: "I Murder Hate"
author: "Robert Burns"
form: "Song"
year: "1790"
location: "Ellisland"
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/i-murder-hate/"
---

# I Murder Hate

## Song
I murder hate by flood or field,  
Tho’ glory’s name may screen us;  
In wars at home I’ll spend my blood—  
Life-giving wars of Venus.  
The deities that I adore  
Are social Peace and Plenty;  
I’m better pleas’d to make one more,  
Than be the death of twenty.

I would not die like Socrates,  
For all the fuss of Plato;  
Nor would I with Leonidas,  
Nor yet would I with Cato:  
The zealots of the Church and State  
Shall ne’er my mortal foes be;  
But let me have bold Zimri’s fate,  
Within the arms of Cozbi!

---

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/i-murder-hate/