Sic a wife as Willie had,
I wad na gie a button for her!
The songs written by Burns in connection with politics are often lively and pointed, but they have little imagination, and the passing of the issues they dealt with has deprived them of general interest. Two classes of exceptions may be noted. He was, as we have seen, sympathetically interested in the French Revolution, and the fundamental doctrine of Liberty, Fraternity, Equality was cast by him into a poem which, he himself said, is “not really poetry,” but is admirably vigorous rhetoric in verse, and has become the classic utterance of the democratic faith.
A MAN'S A MAN FOR A' THAT
Is there for honest poverty
That hings his head, an' a' that? hangs
The coward slave, we pass him by,
We dare be poor for a' that!
For a' that, an' a' that,
Our toils obscure, an' a' that;