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

251 . Impromptu Lines to Captain Riddell

YOUR News and Review, sir.

I’ve read through and through, sir,

With little admiring or blaming;

The Papers are barren

Of home-news or foreign,

No murders or rapes worth the naming.

Our friends, the Reviewers,

Those chippers and hewers,

Are judges of mortar and stone, sir;

But of meet or unmeet,

In a fabric complete,

I’ll boldly pronounce they are none, sir;

My goose-quill too rude is

To tell all your goodness

Bestow’d on your servant, the Poet;

Would to God I had one

Like a beam of the sun,

And then all the world, sir, should know it!