Tam Samson's Elegy by Robert Burns
The elegy laments the reported death of Tam Samson, whose loss is treated as a calamity for Kilmarnock, its mourners, and the “Brethren” of the Lodge. Winter curlers grieve because he had been supreme at every part of their sport: guarding, drawing, making a hole, and roaring up the rink. Fish, including salmon, trout, eels, and geds, are now safe from him, while partridges, muircocks, and hares rejoice that their deadly enemy is gone. The poem recalls the morning when Tam set out in his shooting clothes, with eager pointers freed from their couples, and never returned. Neither old age, gout, nor flooded burns had previously stopped him. He limped across difficult ground and continued to bring down his second shot until Death attacked him from behind. Even after feeling Death’s dagger, he reels in his familiar bottle-swagger fashion, fires one final carefully aimed shot, cries “Lord, five!” and falls. Old hunters mourn him as a brother and young sportsmen as a father. A grey stone among the heather marks his grave, bearing Burns’s rhyming declaration that Tam Samson is dead. He lies at rest, perhaps with a spiteful muirfowl nesting on his breast, no longer able to disturb it. Passing sportsmen are asked to honour him with three volleys of powder and lead, so that Echo may repeat the news of his death. Though he had “twa fauts, or maybe three,” he is remembered as a sociable and honest man whose absence is deeply felt. The epitaph asks canting zealots to spare the dead man, declaring that if honest worth rises to Heaven, they must improve themselves or will not come near him there. The “Per Contra” reverses the mourning: Fame is told to spread the word through Killie that Tam Samson has survived Death’s sharp knife and is still living.
By Robert Burns · First published 1787 · Genre: Elegy, Satirical Poetry, Mock Elegy · 1,174 words
First lines
An honest man's the noblest work of God-Pope.
When this worthy old sportman went out, last muirfowl season, he supposed it was to be, in Ossian's phrase, "the last of his fields," and expressed an ardent wish to die and be buried in the muirs. On this hint the author composed his elegy and epitaph. -R. B., 1787.
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Genres
- Elegy — The poem adopts the conventional form of a lament for Tam Samson's supposed death, repeatedly mourning his loss and commemorating his character.
- Satirical Poetry — Burns humorously exaggerates the public consequences of Samson's death, mocks solemn mourning, and overturns the elegiac premise with the revelation that he is alive.
- Mock Elegy — Its funeral language and grief are deliberately disproportionate and playful, producing a comic imitation of serious elegiac verse.
- Comic Poetry — The work draws humor from hyperbole, dialect, sporting imagery, the hunter's apparent battle with death, and the final reversal.
Tags
Scottish vernacular poetry · mock elegy · comic lament · Kilmarnock · eighteenth-century Scotland · rural community · death and remembrance · hunting · shooting sports · curling · fishing · winter landscape
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Tam Samson's Elegy 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, Satirical Poetry, Mock Elegy, Comic Poetry, Scottish Vernacular Poetry
- Length: 1,174 words
- Structure: 1 section, 23 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Easy (6th Grade)
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