Robert Burns by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The speaker pictures Burns as a singing ploughman in Ayr, whose songs draw on fields and birds and express love, remorse, freedom, and brotherhood. Lamenting his early death, the speaker imagines his continuing presence throughout his native land and welcomes his ghost to a vacant chair at home.
By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow · Genre: Literary Tribute, Elegiac Poetry · 479 words
First lines
I see amid the fields of Ayr / A ploughman, who, in foul and fair, / Sings at his task / So clear, we know not if it is / The laverock's song we hear, or his, / Nor care to ask.
For him the ploughing of those fields / A more ethereal harvest yields / Than sheaves of grain; / Songs flush with Purple bloom the rye, / The plover's call, the curlew's cry, / Sing in his brain.
Genres
- Literary Tribute — The speaker commemorates Burns through his ploughing, the subjects of his songs, and an imagined welcome into the speaker's home.
- Elegiac Poetry — The speaker laments Burns's early death and imagines his presence enduring among ploughs, household fires, brooks, and boughs.
Tags
ploughing · song · remembrance · early death · freedom · brotherhood
What this Textopian page supports
Robert Burns is listed on Textopian as a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, dated Date unknown.
This source record anchors work identity, reading entry points, and catalog context for checking claims about the work.
- Work type: Poem
- Author: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
- Date: Date unknown
- Language: English
- Genres: Literary Tribute, Elegiac Poetry
- Length: 479 words
- Structure: 1 section, 9 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Fairly Easy (7th Grade)
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