The Chevalier's Lament by Robert Burns
The speaker observes the returning beauty of spring: birds rejoice, streams run through the vale, and primroses and cowslips brighten the green landscape. Yet these pleasures cannot comfort one whose time is burdened by care and despair. The speaker defends a daring act intended to place a king and father upon his throne, asserting that the hills and valleys are his by right. Though suffering alone and without shelter, the speaker grieves most for brave, loyal friends whose devotion in bloody trial has brought them ruin, while the speaker can offer them no better return.
By Robert Burns · First published 1792 · Genre: Lyric Poetry, Lament, Jacobite Poetry · 223 words
First lines
Air-"Captain O'Kean."
The small birds rejoice in the green leaves returning, / The murmuring streamlet winds clear thro' the vale; / The primroses blow in the dews of the morning, / And wild scatter'd cowslips bedeck the green dale: / But what can give pleasure, or what can seem fair, / When the lingering moments are numbered by care? / No birds sweetly singing, nor flow'rs gaily springing, / Can soothe the sad bosom of joyless despair.
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The Chevalier's Lament is listed on Textopian as a poem by Robert Burns, dated 1792 CE.
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- Work type: Poem
- Author: Robert Burns
- Date: 1792 CE
- Language: English
- Genres: Lyric Poetry, Lament, Jacobite Poetry, Political Poetry, Scottish Poetry
- Length: 223 words
- Structure: 1 section, 3 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Fairly Easy (7th Grade)
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- Work identity for The Chevalier's Lament by Robert Burns
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Similar titles
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Genres
- Lyric Poetry — The work is a short, intensely personal verse lyric expressing the speaker's grief, guilt, and despair.
- Lament — Its central mode is mourning: the speaker grieves both his own exile and the suffering and ruin of his loyal companions.
- Jacobite Poetry — The poem evokes Jacobite political loyalties through its reference to restoring a king and father to his throne and to the consequences borne by his supporters.
- Political Poetry — Private sorrow is inseparable from questions of royal legitimacy, rebellion, loyalty, punishment, and political defeat.
Tags
Scottish song · political lament · Jacobite theme · restoration of a king · exile and homelessness · loyalty to a fallen cause · sacrifice of comrades · grief for ruined friends · despair · care and suffering · springtime nature · returning spring