Pleasures are like poppies spread

Here's an excerpt from Robert Burns' famous poem, "Tam O Shanter" ...

... it's taken from the 2014 collection (as pictured in the collage), which is replete with wonderful illustrations by Elizabeth Blackadder; who features on the back-cover of the publication :-)


from Tam O Shanter

But pleasures are like poppies spread,
You seize the flow'r, its bloom is shed;
Or like the snow falls in the river,
A moment white - then melts for ever;
Or like the Borealis race,
That flit ere you can point their place;
Or like the Rainbow's lovely form
Evanishing amid the storm.
Nae man can tether Time nor Tide,
The hour approaches Tam maun ride;
That hour, o' night's black arch the key-stane,
That dreary hour he mounts his beast in;
And sic a night he taks the road in,
As ne'er poor sinner was abroad in.

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Robert Burns (1759 - 1796)

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