A Mother's Lament For the Death of Her Son.

Fate gave the word, the arrow sped,

  And pierc’d my darling’s heart;

And with him all the joys are fled

  Life can to me impart.

By cruel hands the sapling drops,        

  In dust dishonour’d laid;

So fell the pride of all my hopes,

  My age’s future shade.

The mother-linnet in the brake

  Bewails her ravish’d young;        

So I, for my lost darling’s sake,

  Lament the live-day long.

Death, oft I’ve feared thy fatal blow.

  Now, fond, I bare my breast;

O, do thou kindly lay me low        

  With him I love, at rest!

Robert Burns