In the penultimate week of suggested items for a Burns Supper we include a song which has become increasingly popular in recent years, ‘The Slave’s Lament’, which Burns had submitted to Johnson’s Museum, and his world-renown international song of parting ‘Auld Lang Syne’.

THE SLAVE'S LAMENT

FRANCIS MEYNELL: Slaves Below Deck of Albanez.
Africans endured the transatlantic voyage on a Spanish slave ship.

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:
Torn from that lovely shore, and must never see it more;
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,
And alas! I am weary, weary O:
There streams for ever flow, and there flowers for ever blow,
And alas! I am weary, weary O:

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,
And alas! I am weary, weary O:
And I think on friends most dear, with the bitter, bitter tear,
And alas! I am weary, weary O:
 

AULD LANG SYNE

Should auld acquaintance be forgot
And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot
And days of auld lang syne?

Chorus
For auld lang syne, my jo,
For auld lang syne
We'll tak' a cup o' kindness yet
For auld lang syne.

And surely ye'll be your pint stowp!
And surely I'll be mine
And we'll tak' a cup o' kindness yet
For auld lang syne.

We twa hae run about the braes
And pou'd the gowans fine;
But we've wander'd mony a weary fitt,
Sin' auld lang syne.

We twa hae paidl't in the burn
Frae morning sun till dine:
But seas between us braid hae roar'd
Sin' auld lang syne.

And there's a hand, my trusty fiere!
Andgie's a hand o' thine!
And we'll tak a right gude-willie waughs
For auld lang syne.

Footnote: The greatest name in Sots-song is that of Robert Burns - he gave us our National Anthem 'Bruce's Address at Bannockburn' (Scots Wha Hae);  an international song of Brotherhood in 'A Man's A Man For A' That' and the universal parting song 'Auld Lang Syne' which is particularly associated with Hogmanay.  Burns never claimed the song as his own and wrote to his publisher George Thomson - 'The air is but mediocre but the following song, the old song of the olden times, and which has never been in print, not even in manuscript, until I took them down from an old man's singing, is enough to recommend any air'.  However he admitted to Johnson that the two verses beginning respectively 'We twa hae run aboot the braes' and 'We twa hae paidl'd in the burn' were his own.  Today the song is only associated with one man - the byornar Robert Burns.