Robert Burns (1759–1796). Poems and Songs.
The Harvard Classics. 1909–14.

234 . A Mother’s Lament for her Son’s Death

FATE gave the word, the arrow sped,

And pierc’d my darling’s heart;

And with him all the joys are fled

Life can to me impart.

By cruel hands the sapling drops,

In dust dishonour’d laid;

So fell the pride of all my hopes,

My age’s future shade.

The mother-linnet in the brake

Bewails her ravish’d young;

So I, for my lost darling’s sake,

Lament the live-day long.

Death, oft I’ve feared thy fatal blow.

Now, fond, I bare my breast;

O, do thou kindly lay me low

With him I love, at rest!