That it should come to this:alone in a rented room away from wife and family, seated in a chair drawn up beside an empty fireplace where the candle is unlit, the books unread, and, at his feet, his notebook lies where he dropped it. He is only 37. His real life should just be beginning instead of capitulating to a cruel boyhood, a blunted youth and fame – a flame, which burned so high in his own day, that it virtually died before he did.
This polymath, poetic star and lyricist of real genius should have lived until he was ninety, replete with the rewards due from his many gifts. Instead he died worrying about money and having to rely on a posthumous recognition that has made him immortal.
The nine lives of Robert Burns came to a sad end and Scotland has been trying to atone ever since.
The raven in the window came to give him warning and he went gladly before the sun went down on his day…