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This poem is both a celebration of a birth and a defiant response to his critics. Burns’ first daughter’s mother was Betty Paton. They were not married and as a result he faced stern moral criticism.

In this dramatic monologue the speaker, as he prays, undermines his own prejudiced, hypocritical and self-interested stance. Burns uses the prayer to comment on Willie, and people like him.

Robert Burns’ most famous narrative poem, this mock-heroic epic details the ghostly adventures of the loveable drunkard Tam and reflects on some of the folk beliefs current in Burns’ time.

Based on a vivid personal experience of ploughing up a mouse’s nest and of being a struggling tenant farmer, this poem epitomises Burns’ compassion, empathy and ability to evoke harsh reality.

Burns uses the image of a louse climbing over a fine lady sitting in church to explores themes of self-awareness, social justice and the importance of all life.

This poem is about the relationship of man to the natural world, the everlasting nature of love and the power of human emotions.