After her death from consumption on the 17th June 1790, Burns spent months composing a suitable elegy. He sent it to Alexander Cunningham on 23rd January 1791, without lines 25-28. The omitted ...

At the time of his death I composed an elegiac Stanza or two, as he was a man I much regarded; but something came in my way so that the design of an Elegy to his memory gave up. – Meeting with ...