---
title: "Tragic Fragment"
author: "Robert Burns"
form: "Poem"
year: "1771 - 1779"
location: "Mount Oliphant"
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/tragic-fragment/"
---

# Tragic Fragment

## Poem
All devil as I am—a damned wretch,  
A hardened, stubborn, unrepenting villain,  
Still my heart melts at human wretchedness;  
And with sincere but unavailing sighs  
I view the helpless children of distress:  
With tears indignant I behold the oppressor  
Rejoicing in the honest man’s destruction,  
Whose unsubmitting heart was all his crime.—  
Ev’n you, ye hapless crew! I pity you;  
Ye, whom the seeming good think sin to pity;  
Ye poor, despised, abandoned vagabonds,  
Whom Vice, as usual, has turn’d o’er to ruin.  
Oh! but for friends and interposing Heaven,  
I had been driven forth like you forlorn,  
The most detested, worthless wretch among you!  
O injured God! Thy goodness has endow’d me  
With talents passing most of my compeers,  
Which I in just proportion have abused—  
As far surpassing other common villains  
As Thou in natural parts has given me more.

---

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/tragic-fragment/