1. Robert Burns („Heaven-taught ploughman” „Caledonia’s Bard”) 1759-1796
Son of tenant farmers, born in Alloway (coast of southwest Scotland)
Educated by his father and a parish priest, John Murdoch
Full time farmer at the age of 15
„represented the spontaneous overflow of his native feelings”
Married Jean Armour, the daughter of a stone mason in 1786
July 1786 a local printer published the Kilmarnock volume, Burns’ first published poems. They were an immediate success (including „To a Mouse”)
New edition published in Edinburgh in April 1787, met Walter Scott there
Contributed to The Scots Musical Museum, The Melodies of Scotland, and A Select Collection of Original Scottish Airs (music „awoke sympathies that reason could not arouse” –Norton Anthology)
remained an outspoken admirer of American and French revolutions
died in Dumphries at the age of 37
In 2009 chosen as the greatest Scot by the Scottish public in a television vote

3. To a Mouse
Wee, sleeket, cowran, tim’rous beastie,
O, what a panic’s in thy breastie!
Thou need na start awa sae hasty,
Wi’ bickerin brattle!
I wad be laith to rin an’ chase thee
Wi’ murd’ring pattle!
I’m truly sorry Man’s dominion
Has broken Nature’s social union,
An’ justifies that ill opinion,
Which makes thee startle,
At me, thy poor, earth-born companion,
An’ fellow-mortal!
I doubt na, whyles, but thou may thieve;
What then? poor beastie, thou maun live!
A daimen-icker in a thrave
’S a sma’ request:
I’ll get a blessin wi’ the lave,
An’ never miss ’t!
Thy wee-bit housie, too, in ruin!
It’s silly wa’s the win’s are strewin!
An’ naething, now, to big a new ane,
O’ foggage green!
An’ bleak December’s winds ensuin,
Baith snell an’ keen!

4. Thou saw the fields laid bare an’ waste,
An’ weary Winter comin fast,
An’ cozie here, beneath the blast,
Thou thought to dwell,
Till crash! the cruel coulter past
Out thro’ thy cell.
That wee-bit heap o’ leaves an’ stibble
Has cost thee monie a weary nibble!
Now thou’s turn’d out, for a’ thy trouble,
But house or hald,
To thole the Winter’s sleety dribble,
An’ cranreuch cauld!
But Mousie, thou art no thy-lane,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men
Gang aft agley,
An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,
For promis’d joy!
Still, thou art blest, compar’d wi’ me!
The present only toucheth thee:
But Och! I backward cast my e’e,
On prospects drear!
An’ forward tho’ I canna see,
I guess an’ fear!

5. The Slave’s Lament (1792)
It was in sweet Senegal that my foes did me enthral,
For the lands of Virginia,-ginia, O:
Torn from that lovely shore, and must never see it more;
And alas! I am weary, weary O:
And alas! I am weary, weary O.
All on that charming coast is no bitter snow and frost,
Like the lands of Virginia,-ginia, O:
There streams for ever flow, and there flowers for ever blow,
The burden I must bear, while the cruel scourge I fear,
In the lands of Virginia,-ginia, O;
And I think on friends most dear, with the bitter, bitter tear,

6. Auld Lang Syne
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to mind?
And auld lang syne!
Chorus.-For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne.
We'll tak a cup o' kindness yet,
And surely ye'll be your pint stowp!
And surely I'll be mine!
And we'll tak a cup o'kindness yet,

7. We twa hae run about the braes,
And pou'd the gowans fine;
But we've wander'd mony a weary fit,
Sin' auld lang syne.
For auld, &c.
We twa hae paidl'd in the burn,
Frae morning sun till dine;
But seas between us braid hae roar'd
And there's a hand, my trusty fere!
And gie's a hand o' thine!
And we'll tak a right gude-willie waught,
For auld lang syne.

8. Charlotte Smith ( )
born into a wealthy family, mother died early
Raised by her aunt; when her father fell into financial ruin she was married off to the son of a wealthy West Indies merchant
Bore 12 children, husband abusive
Wrote Elegiac Sonnets in 1784 while in debtors’ prison with her husband
First novel Emmeline in 1788
"the first poet in England whom in retrospect we would call Romantic". –Stuart Curran
helped shape the "patterns of thought and conventions of style" for the period, is responsible for rekindling the sonnet form in England.
influenced popular romantic poets of her time such as, William Wordsworth and John Keats. William Wordsworth believed that Smith wrote, "with true feeling for rural nature, at a time when nature was not much regarded by English Poets".He also stated in the 1830s that she was "a lady to whom English verse is under greater obligations than are likely to be either acknowledged or remembered„*
The Old Manor House (1793) set during the American Revolutionary War
*Wikipedia

11. Mary Robinson (1757-1800) „The English Sappho”
Born in Bristol, daughter of a naval captain
After her father left the family, her mother ran a school for girls
Married a law clerk who ended up in debtor’s prison
First poems appeared in a two-volume Poems in 1775
In December 1776 played the role of Juliet at Drury Lane Theater in London, became mistress of the Prince of Wales, George IV
Aware of her role as „the most attractive object in a large urban display.”
Contributed to the English revival of the sonnet with her Petrarchan series Sappho and Phaon
Became poetry editor of the Morning Post in 1799
Authored seven novels, political tracts
Modern critic Stuart Curran has said her late verse represents „the new realism that will impel English poetry into the nineteenth century”
Coleridge said of „The Haunted Beach”: „the Metre—ay! that Woman has an Ear.”