Robert Burns is the national poet of Scotland, a true bard whose poetic gifts are as natural to the northern landscape as wild thistles and warm embers. With a knowing wink and with a wisdom far beyond his years—poor Rabbie Burns died young, at the age of thirty-seven—he spun odes, yarns, ditties, songs, anthems, and ballads which express the ineffable and often timorous splendor of being alive, of having cognition and sentience, and not allowing that humanity to collapse despite the fear, tumult, and oblivion we all face in the bargain. 
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Burns’ work gives us the courage to feel with whole heart; his poetry has the power to encapsulate life in a single phrase, and his poetry was equally cherished by elites and common folk alike. Burns gave us incredible stories, like “Tam O’ Shanter,” timeless and impassioned lyrics such as “A Red, Red Rose,” and songs which are still sung to this day, the world over, and which provide us the emotional architecture for the dying of years and the passing of time. The most clarion of these is his heartbreaking lyric “Auld Lang Syne,” sung traditionally at New Years. Roughly translated from Scots auld lang syne means “olden times,” “years gone past.” or “days gone by.”  
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Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
and never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
and auld lang syne?
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To read and remember Rabbie Burns is to keep alive the humor and beating heart of humanity in the face of death and uncertainty. His lyrics are a candle for us in the darkness, the light and the warmth of which help ensure that the most generous of our human sympathies will not go unremembered by those who come after.