Robert Burns's diamond point engravings
He wrote these lines[6] on a window in the inn in the presence of his travelling companion Dr. George Grierson with his newly acquired diamond-point pen so it would be one of his first : "Whoe'er he be that sojourns here, I pity much his case.
No satisfactory explanation has been given for Burns stopping here at the start of his Highland Tour and the poet himself has left no record of the event and the details of the whereabouts of the pane itself has been lost.
Local tradition has long held that Burns visited Niel Gow at Dunkeld and went with him to the Inver Inn where, on seeing and hearing an irate woman, the poet inscribed an epigram which he wrote then and there on the window with his diamond pen.
[10] In 1789 Robert Burns attempted to visit the Carron Ironworks at Camelon near Falkirk, however he was refused entry because it was a Sunday and the works were closed.
The poet went to the nearby Carron Inn opposite and breakfasted on the second floor where he inscribed on a windowpane the following lines: We cam here to view your warks, In hopes to be mair wise, But only, lest we gang to hell, It may be nae surprise: But when we tirl'd at your door, Your porter dought na hear us; Sae may, shou'd we to Hell's yetts come, Your billy Satan sair us!
He penned a reply: If you came here to view our works, You should have been more civil, Than to give a fictitious name, In hopes to cheat the devil, Six days a week to you and all, We think it very well; The other if you go to church, May keep you out of hell.
[12] In 1787 Burns toured the Highlands with Willie Nicol as a companion and visited Falkirk en route where he is said to have inscribed a glass window pane of the Cross Keys Inn with 4 lines beginning – 'Sound be his sleep and blithe his morn'; dated 25 August 1787.
[20] Burns engraved 'sarcastic' lines about John Dow, Landlord of the Whitefoord Arms, on a window pane in the upper room of the inn which he had often used to communicate with Jean Armour whose home lay just across the street from the back of the building.
The room was preserved as it was in Burns time for the sake of tourists, however the pane was destroyed when the Whitefoord Arms was demolished at a date after 1881 when the author William Jolly saw it intact.
Strong ale was ablution; Small beer, persecution; A dram was memento mori; But a full flowing bowl Was the saving his soul, And port was celestial glory!
Burns is said to have lodged on 24 June 1787 at this hostlery in Cross Shore Street, Greenock and the window pane upon which he inscribed some words was in the possession of a Mr George Williamson, a local historian and was inherited by his descendants.
Burns was a frequent visitor to Sanquhar on account of his excise duties and he often stayed at the New Inn, later the Queensberry Arms, on the High Street where he is thought to engraved lines in 1789 on a windowpane in the breakfast room.
[25] In the 1880s, the window pane was said to have been broken or removed during repairs to the house, but in the 1880s Miss Allison, a granddaughter of Edward,[26] recited the lines from memory for the author of a local guidebook.
Through this window chance to pry, To thy sorrow thou shalt find, All that's generous, all that's kind Friendship, virtue, every grace, Dwelling in this happy place.
[32] McKay records that John Gillespie and Jean Lorimer's names were scratched on a windowpane as well as the Pope quote of "An honest man's the noblest work of God."
[34] Amongst the most famous examples of scribing on windowpanes is at the Friars Carse Hermitage, near his then home at Ellisland Farm, which the poet was allowed to use by Robert Riddell as a place of peace and solitude where he could compose and write down his poems and songs.
[37][38] The second window of the 1874 building had the following verse inscribed upon it[35] that were written on the original pane by Burns when he visited Friars Carse for the last time, some years after Robert Riddell's death.
"[41] The following stanza is said to have been written on one of the window panes after he was told by the Excise authorities that his duty "was to act, not to think": In politics if thou would'st mix, And mean thy fortunes be; Bear this in mind, be deaf and blind, - Let great folks hear and see.
even monarchs' mighty gaugers: Nay, what are priests, those seeming godly wise men?, What are they, pray, but spiritual Excisemen?
John Logan lived at Laight Farm and Burns visited on a number of occasions, dining here on Saturday 19 October 1788, and four days later dropping in for breakfast.
[56] The window sash and pane were for a time preserved in the modern Loudoun Manse and the inscription is regarded as genuine by handwriting experts.
[58][59] These lines were to almost cut short his career in the Excise before it had even started for he records in a letter that a "great person" had visited him and interrogated him "like a child about my matters, and blamed and schooled for my inscription on a Stirling window".
[13][60] Possibly because of William Nicol's negative comments or the rebuke from a "great person"[60] Burns later is said, only by Allan Cunningham, to have added the lines: Rash mortal, and slanderous Poet!
[64] The Brownhill Inn lay a couple of miles north of Ellisland Farm in the parish of Closeburn and was a favourite haunt of Burns from 1788 to 1791, even to the extent that he gave his own inscribed horn snuff mill to the landlord, Mr.
Following his father's death Sir James is said to have examined these artefacts and was so shocked that he destroyed them in order to preserve Burns's reputation.
Miss Harkness recalled that Burns left inscriptions by his diamond point pen on several windows on the upper floor of the property in the town's High Street where he often stayed whilst on Excise duties.
[67] In 1803 the poem "On the Destruction of Drumlanrig Woods" was first published in The Scots Magazine and at first attributed to Burns who is said to have inscribed this lengthy work on a window pane.
The National Museum of Scotland holds a broken pane of glass which is said to have been inscribed by Robert Burns with the words: I do compare her to the Damask Rose, That in some well improven garden grows, O if I was a bee, To sip the heavenly balm upon her lips.
The artist Hugh Bryden and David Borthwick, lecturer at the University of Glasgow in Dumfries, came up with the idea of sending clear plastic sheets with a pen to contemporary poets and inviting them to submit their own work for display as window poems.
His initials 'RB' are to be found in the Mauchline gorge near Ballochmyle Viaduct and are again said to have been carved by the poet who frequented the site and lived for a time at the nearby Mossgiel Farm.
