Should auld acquaintance be forgot, / And never brought to mind?
Burns sent a copy to his patron Mrs Dunlop in December 1788, and he described the song as an old one whose words he had taken down from an old man’s singing. The version that is sung at New Year is his.
The rank is but the guinea’s stamp, / The Man’s the gowd for a’ that.
Had we never lov’d sae kindly, / Had we never lov’d sae blindly, / Never met—or never parted, / We had ne’er been broken-hearted.
O my Luve is like a red, red rose / That’s newly sprung in June.
All the world’s a stage, / And all the men and women merely players;
Because I could not stop for Death – / He kindly stopped for me –
Break, break, break, / On thy cold gray stones, O Sea! / And I would that my tongue could utter / The thoughts that arise in me.