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Description: | This elegy, or poem written in memory of the dead, was written by Burns on his friend Matthew Henderson, who died in 1788. Burns uses an old elegiac tradition of calling upon all animals and natural bodies, such as the sun and moon, to mourn his friend. The poem continues with an epitaph, describing Henderson's many virtues.
Captain Matthew Henderson was part of 'a genteel profligate society' in Edinburgh, who had inherited property from his father but been forced to sell due to his spending. Henderson had much in common with Burns - he enjoyed convivial company, was a Mason, an antiquarian and had radical politics.
Burns will wait by the plain grave of his friends and weep for the best man ever laid in earth. The second part of the poem, the Epitaph, now begins, describing Burns' friend. The form of the poem also changes. Matthew was a great, poor, brave man. | License: | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0 | Publisher: | Burns Monument Trust | Temporal: | 1791-01-01 - 1791-12-31 | Source: | Burns Scotland | Identifier: | The Afton Manuscripts, a volume containi | Go to resource |
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