Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns: Impromptu Lines To Captain Riddell

Impromptu Lines To Captain Riddell

On Returning a Newspaper.

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!

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