For literary fame, Robert Burns (1759–1796) had the advantage of coming early: a proto-Romantic to whom the Romantics would turn, a genial promoter of Scotland whose work would seem nation-defining to later Scottish nationalists, a poet who wrote in English with a light Scots dialect that would endear him to the English-monoglot descendants of Scots scattered around the world. He also had the advantage of being good — a craftsman with a talent for memorability and a gift for making the poetry seem easy. In “Epigram on Rough Roads,” Burns uses hymn meter (four-foot lines alternating with three-foot lines) to construct a pun on the religious sense of “mend their ways” and complain about bad roads in Scotland.

Epigram on Rough Roads
by Robert Burns

I’m now arrived—thanks to the gods!—
    Thro’ pathways rough and muddy,
A certain sign that makin roads
    Is no this people’s study:
Altho’ I’m not wi’ Scripture cram’d,
    I’m sure the Bible says
That heedless sinners shall be damn’d,
    Unless they mend their ways.

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With “Poem of the Day,” The New York Sun offers a daily portion of verse selected by the Sun’s poetry editor, Joseph Bottum of Dakota State University, with the help of the North Carolina poet Sally Thomas, The Sun’s associate poetry editor. Tied to the day, or the season, or just individual taste, the poems will be typically drawn from the lesser-known portion of the history of English verse. In the coming months we will be reaching out to contemporary poets for examples of current, primarily formalist work, to show that poetry can still serve as a delight to the ear, an instruction to the mind, and a tonic for the soul.