---
title: "Lines Written in Friars’-Carse Hermitage"
author: "Robert Burns"
form: "Poem"
year: "1788"
dateline: "Glenriddel Hermitage, June 28th, 1788"
location: "Mossgiel"
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/lines-written-in-friars-carse-hermitage/"
---

# Lines Written in Friars’-Carse Hermitage

## Poem
Thou whom chance may hither lead,  
Be thou clad in russet weed,  
Be thou deckt in silken stole,  
Grave these maxims on thy soul.

Life is but a day at most,  
Sprung from night, in darkness lost:  
Hope not sunshine every hour,  
Fear not clouds will always lour.

Happiness is but a name,  
Make content and ease thy aim,  
Ambition is a meteor-gleam;  
Fame, an idle restless dream;

Peace, the tend’rest flow’r of spring;  
Pleasures, insects on the wing;  
Those that sip the dew alone—  
Make the butterflies thy own;  
Those that would the bloom devour—  
Crush the locusts, save the flower.

For the future be prepar’d,  
Guard wherever thou can’st guard;  
But thy utmost duly done,  
Welcome what thou can’st not shun.  
Follies past, give thou to air,  
Make their consequence thy care:  
Keep the name of Man in mind,  
And dishonour not thy kind.  
Reverence with lowly heart  
Him, whose wondrous work thou art;  
Keep His Goodness still in view,  
Thy trust, and thy example, too.

Stranger, go! Heaven be thy guide!  
Quod the Beadsman of Nidside.

---

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/lines-written-in-friars-carse-hermitage/