Explore "Stanzas, on the same Occasion" by Robert Burns on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Why am I loth to leave this earthly scene? / Have I so found it full of pleasing charms? / Some drops of joy with draughts of ill between- / Some gleams of sunshine 'mid renewing storms, / Is it departing pangs my soul alarms? / Or death's unlovely, dreary, dark abode? / For guilt, for guilt, my terrors are in arms: / I tremble to approach an angry God, / And justly smart beneath His sin-avenging rod.
Fain would I say, "Forgive my foul offence," / Fain promise never more to disobey; / But, should my Author health again dispense, / Again I might desert fair virtue's way; / Again in folly's part might go astray; / Again exalt the brute and sink the man; / Then how should I for heavenly mercy pray / Who act so counter heavenly mercy's plan? / Who sin so oft have mourn'd, yet to temptation ran?