---
title: "On the Death of Robert Dundas, Esq., of Arniston, Late Lord President of the Court of Session"
author: "Robert Burns"
form: "Poem"
year: "1787"
location: "Edinburgh"
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/on-the-death-of-robert-dundas-esq-of-arniston-late-lord-president-of-the-court-o/"
---

# On the Death of Robert Dundas, Esq., of Arniston, Late Lord President of the Court of Session

## Poem
Lone on the bleaky hills the straying flocks  
Shun the fierce storms among the sheltering rocks;  
Down from the rivulets, red with dashing rains,  
The gathering floods burst o’er the distant plains;  
Beneath the blast the leafless forests groan;  
The hollow caves return a hollow moan.  
Ye hills, ye plains, ye forests, and ye caves,  
Ye howling winds, and wintry swelling waves!  
Unheard, unseen, by human ear or eye,  
Sad to your sympathetic glooms I fly;  
Where, to the whistling blast and water’s roar,  
Pale Scotia’s recent wound I may deplore.

O heavy loss, thy country ill could bear!  
A loss these evil days can ne’er repair!  
Justice, the high vicegerent of her God,  
Her doubtful balance eyed, and sway’d her rod:  
Hearing the tidings of the fatal blow,  
She sank, abandon’d to the wildest woe.

Wrongs, injuries, from many a darksome den,  
Now, gay in hope, explore the paths of men:  
See from his cavern grim Oppression rise,  
And throw on Poverty his cruel eyes;  
Keen on the helpless victim see him fly,  
And stifle, dark, the feebly-bursting cry:  
Mark Ruffian Violence, distained with crimes,  
Rousing elate in these degenerate times,  
View unsuspecting Innocence a prey,  
As guileful Fraud points out the erring way:  
While subtle Litigation’s pliant tongue  
The life-blood equal sucks of Right and Wrong:  
Hark, injur’d Want recounts th’ unlisten’d tale,  
And much-wrong’d Mis’ry pours the unpitied wail!

Ye dark waste hills, ye brown unsightly plains,  
Congenial scenes, ye soothe my mournful strains:  
Ye tempests, rage! ye turbid torrents, roll!  
Ye suit the joyless tenor of my soul.  
Life’s social haunts and pleasures I resign;  
Be nameless wilds and lonely wanderings mine,  
To mourn the woes my country must endure—  
That would degenerate ages cannot cure.

---

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/on-the-death-of-robert-dundas-esq-of-arniston-late-lord-president-of-the-court-o/