Raging Fortune: Fragment of Song by Robert Burns
The speaker compares their former happiness and promise to a flourishing plant: its stem was fair, its bud green, and its sweet blossom nourished by fresh dew and mild sun. Raging, luckless Fortune then arrives like a destructive northern storm, withering the plant, casting its leaf and every blossom low, and overturning all that had grown.
By Robert Burns · First published 1786 · Genre: Lyric Poetry, Scottish Poetry, Pastoral Poetry · 123 words
First lines
O raging Fortune's withering blast / Has laid my leaf full low, O! / O raging Fortune's withering blast / Has laid my leaf full low, O!
My stem was fair, my bud was green, / My blossom sweet did blow, O! / The dew fell fresh, the sun rose mild, / And made my branches grow, O!
But luckless Fortune's northern storms / Laid a' my blossoms low, O! / But luckless Fortune's northern storms / Laid a' my blossoms low, O!
Similar titles
- An Epitaph Written In The Sand On A Butterfly Drowned In The Sea by Helen Gray Cone
- The Garden by Edwin Arlington Robinson
- The Rigs O Barley by Robert Burns
- A November Daisy by Henry Van Dyke
- The Snake Charmer by Thomas Gordon Hake
- A Death Song by William Morris
Genres
- Lyric Poetry — The work is a short, musical first-person poem centered on an emotional response to Fortune's destructive force, using repetition and refrain-like phrasing.
- Scottish Poetry — Burns employs Scots diction and idiom, including "a'" and the recurring "O!", placing the poem within the Scots literary and song tradition.
- Pastoral Poetry — Its speaker is represented through natural imagery—leaf, stem, bud, blossom, dew, sun, and storms—and personal loss is expressed through the decline of plant life.
- Elegiac Poetry — The poem laments the loss of former beauty, growth, hope, and happiness after these are destroyed by hostile Fortune.
Tags
fortune and misfortune · lost happiness · ruined promise · nature imagery · plant metaphor · withered flowers · fallen leaves · destroyed blossoms · storms · northern storms · destructive weather · transience
What this Textopian page supports
Raging Fortune: Fragment of Song is listed on Textopian as a poem by Robert Burns, dated 1786 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: 1786 CE
- Language: English
- Genres: Lyric Poetry, Scottish Poetry, Pastoral Poetry, Elegiac Poetry, Nature Poetry
- Length: 123 words
- Structure: 1 section, 3 paragraphs
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