Let no mean hope your souls enslave;
  Be independent, generous, brave;
  Your Father such example gave, 45
      And such revere;
  But be admonished by his grave,
      And think, and fear! [F]

* * * * *

VARIANTS ON THE TEXT

[Variant 1: 

1827.

  Ye now are panting up life’s hill! 
  ’Tis twilight time of good and ill, 1807.]

[Variant 2: 

1840.

  Strong bodied if ye be to bear
  Intemperance with less harm, beware! 
  But if your Father’s wit ye share,
      Then, then indeed,
  Ye Sons of Burns! for watchful care 1807.

  ... for tenfold care 1827.

The text of 1827 is otherwise identical with that of 1840.]

[Variant 3: 

1840.

  For honest men delight will take
  To shew you favor for his sake,
  Will flatter you; and Fool and Rake 1807.

  For their beloved Poet’s sake,
  Even honest men delight will take
  To flatter you; ... 1820.

  Even honest Men delight will take
  To spare your failings for his sake,
  Will flatter you,—... 1827.]

* * * * *

FOOTNOTES ON THE TEXT

[Footnote A:  In the edition of 1807, this poem has the title ’Address to the Sons of Burns after visiting their Father’s Grave (August 14th, 1803)’.  Slight changes were made in the title afterwards.—­Ed.]

[Footnote B:  Dorothy Wordsworth wrote, in her ‘Recollections’ of this tour, under date August 18th, 1803,

  “William wrote long afterwards the following Address to the sons of
  the ill-fated poet.”

Ed.]

[Footnote C:  This explanatory note appears in every edition of the Poems from 1827 to 1850.  It is taken (but not literally) from the ‘Recollections of a Tour made in Scotland’ as published in 1875.—­Ed.]

[Footnote D:  From Burns’s ‘Epistle to James Smith’, l. 53.—­Ed.]

[Footnote E:  From Burns’s poem, ‘The Vision’, Duan Second.—­Ed.]

[Footnote F:  In the edition of 1807, the poem began with what is now the second stanza, and consisted of four stanzas only, viz.  Nos. ii., iii., iv., and viii.  Stanzas i., v., vi., and vii. were added in 1827.  Stanza iii. was omitted in 1820, but restored in 1827.—­Ed.]

In Dorothy Wordsworth’s ‘Recollections’ of this Tour we find, under date August 18, 1803: