Grown tired of mourning for my sins? And brooding over merits? The other night with bothered brow I went amongst the spirits; And I met one that I knew well: `Oh, Scotty?s Ghost, is that you? `And did you see the fearsome crowd `At Robbie Burns?s statue? `They hurried up in hansom cabs, `Tall-hatted and frock-coated; `They trained it in from all the towns, `The weird and hairy-throated; `They spoke in some outlandish tongue, `They cut some comic capers, `And ilka man was wild to get `His name in all the papers. `They showed no gleam of intellect, `Those frauds who rushed before us; `They knew one verse of ?Auld Lang Syne?? `The first one and the chorus: `They clacked the clack o? Scotlan?s Bard, `They glibly talked of ?Rabby;? `But what if he had come to them `Without a groat and shabby? `They drank and wept for Robbie?s sake, `They stood and brayed like asses `(The living bard?s a drunken rake, `The dead one loved the lasses); `If Robbie Burns were here, they?d sit `As still as any mouse is; `If Robbie Burns should come their way, `They?d turn him out their houses. `Oh, weep for bonny Scotland?s bard! `And praise the Scottish nation, `Who made him spy and let him die `Heart-broken in privation: `Exciseman, so that he might live `Through northern winters? rigours? `Just as in southern lands they give `The hard-up rhymer figures. `We need some songs of stinging fun `To wake the States and light ?em; `I wish a man like Robert Burns `Were here to-day to write ?em! `But still the mockery shall survive `Till the Day o? Judgment crashes? `The men we scorn when we?re alive `With praise insult our ashes.? And Scotty?s ghost said: `Never mind `The fleas that you inherit; `The living bard can flick them off? `They cannot hurt his spirit. `The crawlers round the bardie?s name `Shall crawl through all the ages; `His work?s the living thing, and they `Are fly-dirt on the pages.?