About Author
Robert Burns, a Scottish poet, was born in Alloway, Ayrshire, Scotland, on January 25, 1759. He received little formal education, but he enjoyed reading and he became familiar with the writings of such authors as Dryden, Milton, and Shakespeare. Burns worked long hours with his father, a tenant farmer. The frustration of watching his father's struggles on the farm is said to have inspired his satirical poetry. When his father died in 1784, Burns moved the family to the farm Mossgiel about one mile north of the town of Mauchline. Here he continued to work as a farmer and to write poetry. In 178
