with critical observations and biographical notices, by Robert Burns

vu
On January the sixteenth day, {
as I did ly alone, J
With many a sigh and sob did say,
Ah !
Man
is made to moan. j
Dame Natur, that excellent bride, ]
did stand up me before,
And said to me, thou must provide \
this life for to abhor |
Thou seest what things are gone before,
experience teaches thee ;
Yet do not miss to remember this,
that one day thou must die.
Of all the creatures bearing life I
recall back to thy mind, 1
Consider how they ebb and flow,
each thing in their own kind !
Yet few of them have such a strain,
as God hath given to thee ;
Therefore this lesson keep in mind,
remember man to die.
Man's course on earth I will report,
if I have time and space
It may be long, it may be short,
as God hath giv'n him grace. \
His natur to the herbs compare, I
that in the ground ly dead; i