---
title: "Written by Somebody on the Window"
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/written-by-somebody-on-the-window/"
---

# Written by Somebody on the Window

## Preface
Of an Inn at Stirling, on seeing the Royal Palace in ruin.

## Poem
Here Stuarts once in glory reigned,  
And laws for Scotland’s weal ordained;  
But now unroof’d their palace stands,  
Their sceptre’s sway’d by other hands;  
Fallen indeed, and to the earth  
Whence groveling reptiles take their birth.  
The injured Stuart line is gone,  
A race outlandish fills their throne;  
An idiot race, to honour lost;  
Who know them best despise them most.

---

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/written-by-somebody-on-the-window/