Burns wrote Holy Willie’s Prayer after a friend, Gavin Hamilton, won a contentious lawsuit the local parish of Ayr filed against him. His friend, a lawyer, was at one point responsible for collecting a poor tax in the parish. He came up a few pounds short and the parish accused him of stealing the money. He said that not everyone could afford the tax, thus the discrepancy.
Holy Willie was a member of the parish and a leader of the effort to sue Hamilton who was found guilty by the church session, but acquitted on appeal.
Some consider this poem his masterpiece. He couldn’t publish it when he first wrote it, because it was considered too libelous. As I read it, listen for: a. What Holy Willie says of himself; b. What he has to confess and his appraisal of those acts (his thorn in the flesh); c. What he asks God to do?; d. What is his final petition?
Holy Willie’s Prayer:http://www.robertburns.org/works/58.shtml
In the final verse, he prays:
But, Lord, remember me an’ mine
Wi’ mercies temp’ral an’ divine,
That I for grace an’ gear may shine,
Excell’d by nane,
And a’ the glory shall be thine,
Amen, Amen!
His final hypocrisy: God give me grace and gear, which means things, stuff, riches. Burns had little use for this.
