On Hearing a Thrush Sing
on a Morning Walk in January
First printed by Currie, 1800.
Sing on, sweet thrush, upon the leafless bough,
Sing on, sweet bird, I’ll listen to thy strain:
See aged Winter ’mid his surly reign
At thy blythe carol clears his furrowed brow. —
5 Thus in bleak Poverty’s dominion drear
Sits meek Content, with light, unanxious heart,
Welcomes the rapid moments, bids them part,
Nor asks if they bring ought to hope, or fear. —
I thank thee, Author of this opening day,
10 Thou whose bright sun now gilds yon orient skies.
Riches denied, thy boon was purer joys,
What Wealth could never give, nor take away! —
But come, thou child of Poverty and Care,
The mite high Heaven bestowed, that mite with thee I’ll share. —
This sonnet was, according to folklore, prompted by John Syme in the wake of the poet’s somewhat humiliating dictate by the Excise to keep his nose out of politics. Syme wished Burns to turn his muse to lighter topics than politics. This poem is not apolitical; it does suggest the consolations of a simple, spiritual life lived on a plane beyond material wealth. This consolation, manifest in the song of the thrush, may have been an influence on that Burns admirer, Walt Whitman. Whitman also employs the consolatory song of the thrush in his great poem on Lincoln’s death, When Lilacs Last in the Door-yard Bloom’d.