O wad some Pow’r the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!
It wad frae mony a blunder free us,
An’ foolish notion:
What airs in dress an’ gait wad lea’e us,
An’ ev’n devotion!

From: “To A Louse, On Seeing One on a Lady’s Bonnet at Church” 

I am guessing that Burns might have enjoyed this particular joke, but perhaps have been pleased to note that when I returned to the scene of the crime shortly after taking the photo, that the local authority had removed the offence.

In July 1793 Burns embarked on a tour of Galloway with his friend John Syme. Syme records this story in a letter “written soon after” their return.

“’We left Kenmure, and went to Gatehouse. I took him the moor road, where savage and desolate regions extended wide around. The sky was sympathetic with the wretchedness of the soil; it became lowering and dark. The hollow winds sighed; the lightning gleamed; the thunder rolled. The poet enjoyed the awful scene: he spoke not a word, but seemed rapt in meditation. In a little while the rain began to fall. It poured in floods upon us. For three hours did the wild elements rumble their bellyful upon our defenceless heads. Oh, oh! ’twas foul. We got utterly wet; and, to avenge ourselves, Burns insisted, at Gatehouse, on our getting utterly drunk.” [1]

I imagine that the events leading up to the latter day crowning of the poet, as depicted in the photograph above, bore some resemblance to that night in Gatehouse. Drunk or sober I’d guess the escapade was not without hazard.

Robert Burns, National Poet of Scotland, born Alloway, 25 January 1759, died Dumfries 21 July 1796