Poem of the Day: ‘Epigram on Rough Roads’

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.