The best Robert Burns poems – and some interesting facts about them

Robert Burns (1759-1796) wrote many classic poems and songs, so whittling down his complete works to just ten recommendations has been hard. Nonetheless, there are a few poems that simply have to be on any list of Burns’s best poems, so we hope that most of our choices here won’t seem too perverse or controversial. But which is Robert Burns’s finest poem? We’ve presented the selection below in order, concluding with what we think is Burns’s best poem, but really there were a good four or five that could’ve taken the top spot.

‘Halloween‘. The word ‘Hallowe’en’ first appears in print as ‘Halhalon’ in 1556 – it’s a Scottish word, and this Scottish connection was continued by Robert Burns in this long poem. This Burns poem is often recited at Halloween in Scotland and deftly mixes the English and Scots languages. We have more great Halloween poems here. Read the rest of this entry →