Explore "Tragic Fragment" by Robert Burns on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
All devil as I am-a damned wretch, / A hardened, stubborn, unrepenting villain, / Still my heart melts at human wretchedness; / And with sincere but unavailing sighs / I view the helpless children of distress: / With tears indignant I behold the oppressor / Rejoicing in the honest man's destruction, / Whose unsubmitting heart was all his crime. - / Ev'n you, ye hapless crew! I pity you; / Ye, whom the seeming good think sin to pity; / Ye poor, despised, abandoned vagabonds, / Whom Vice, as usual, has turn'd o'er to ruin. / Oh! but for friends and interposing Heaven, / I had been driven forth like you forlorn, / The most detested, worthless wretch among you! / O injured God! Thy goodness has endow'd me / With talents passing most of my compeers, / Which I in just proportion have abused- / As far surpassing other common villains / As Thou in natural parts has given me more.