On the Death of Robert Dundas, Esq., of Arniston
The poem mourns Robert Dundas as a loss his country can scarcely bear. Its speaker seeks stormy, desolate scenes—bleak hills, flooded plains, groaning forests, caves, winds, and waves—whose gloom suits grief over Pale Scotia’s recent wound. Justice is imagined sinking into wild sorrow at the fatal news. In his absence, wrongs and injuries are expected to emerge: Oppression will pursue Poverty, Violence will make Innocence its prey, Fraud will mislead, and Litigation will consume both Right and Wrong. The speaker hears injur’d Want and much-wrong’d suffering lamenting without relief, then rejects social pleasures for lonely wandering in wild places to mourn the woes his country must endure in degenerate ages.
By Robert Burns · First published 1787 · Genre: Elegy, Funeral Poetry, Political Poetry · 480 words
First lines
Late Lord President of the Court of Session.
Lone on the bleaky hills the straying flocks / Shun the fierce storms among the sheltering rocks; / Down from the rivulets, red with dashing rains, / The gathering floods burst o'er the distant plains; / Beneath the blast the leafless forests groan; / The hollow caves return a hollow moan. / Ye hills, ye plains, ye forests, and ye caves, / Ye howling winds, and wintry swelling waves! / Unheard, unseen, by human ear or eye, / Sad to your sympathetic glooms I fly; / Where, to the whistling blast and water's roar, / Pale Scotia's recent wound I may deplore.
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Genres
- Elegy — The poem is a formal lament for Robert Dundas, mourning his death as a profound personal and national loss.
- Funeral Poetry — Its occasion is the death of a prominent public figure, and its tone centers on bereavement, commemoration, and sorrow.
- Political Poetry — Burns presents Dundas's death as a civic disaster, warning that justice, the poor, and the innocent will suffer without his influence.
- Public or Civic Elegy — Rather than focusing chiefly on private intimacy, the poem grieves for the consequences of Dundas's death for Scotland and its legal and social order.
Tags
elegy · lament · Scottish poetry · eighteenth-century Scotland · national mourning · public loss · Robert Dundas · Lord President of the Court of Session · justice · grief · political corruption · social injustice
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On the Death of Robert Dundas, Esq., of Arniston is listed on Textopian as a poem by Robert Burns, dated 1787 CE.
This source record anchors work identity, reading entry points, and catalog context for checking claims about the work.
- Work type: Poem
- Author: Robert Burns
- Date: 1787 CE
- Language: English
- Genres: Elegy, Funeral Poetry, Political Poetry, Public or Civic Elegy, Lyric Poetry
- Length: 480 words
- Structure: 1 section, 5 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Standard (8th-9th Grade)
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