Tragic Fragment – Robert Burns

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 sighsI view the helpless children of distress:With tears indignant I behold the oppressorRejoicing 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 meWith talents passing most of my compeers,Which I in just proportion have abused—As far surpassing other common villainsAs Thou in natural parts has given me more.