A Portrait of Robert Burns Robert Burns

1789 · Poem

Impromptu Lines to Captain Riddell

On Returning a Newspaper


Your News and Review, sir.I’ve read through and through, sir,With little admiring or blaming;The Papers are barrenOf home-news or foreign,No murders or rapes worth the naming.6
Our friends, the Reviewers,Those chippers and hewers,Are judges of mortar and stone, sir;But of meet or unmeet,In a fabric complete,I’ll boldly pronounce they are none, sir;12
My goose-quill too rude isTo tell all your goodnessBestow’d on your servant, the Poet;Would to God I had oneLike a beam of the sun,And then all the world, sir, should know it!18
Year
1789
Form
Poem
Location
Ellisland
Source
Project Gutenberg #1279 — Poems and Songs of Robert Burns