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the verses." And he enclosed the words of " Auld Lang Syne" as we know them, and un-less Burns was wilfully cpncealing fact, he only trimmed the lines and did not originate or write the lyric. He continues somewhat ex-travagantly : " Light lie the turf on the breast of the heaven-inspired poet who composed this glorious fragment! There is more of the fire of native genius in it than half-a-dozen modern English bacchanalians." Burns would hardly write like this about himself and his work, so we may take it that he only preserved it from forgetfulness.
Three years afterwards, when sending the song to George Thomson, his publisher, and the editor of another collection of miscellaneous songs, he writes, " One song more, and I am done—'Auld Lang Syne.' The air is but mediocre, but the following song, the old song of the olden times, and which has never been in print, nor even in manuscript, until I took it down from an old man's singing, is enough to recommend any air."
On the face of it, though many writers have denied that Burns was telling the truth in writing the above, the poet gives us the real origin and rescue of the song from oblivion. There is not the slightest doubt that Burns
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