"The Slave's Lament" is a song first published in 1792 in volume four of the

Scots Musical Museum The ''Scots Musical Museum'' was an influential collection of traditional folk music of Scotland published from 1787 to 1803. While it was not the first collection of Scottish folk songs and music, the six volumes with 100 songs in each collected ...

. It is often claimed that the lyrics were written by

Robert Burns Robert Burns (25 January 175921 July 1796), also known familiarly as Rabbie Burns, was a Scottish poet and lyricist. He is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland and is celebrated worldwide. He is the best known of the poets who hav ...

. The song is the subject of Graham Fagen’s installation originally created in 2015 with the help of the composer

Sally Beamish Sarah Frances Beamish (born 26 August 1956) is a British composer and violist. Her works include chamber, vocal, choral and orchestral music. She has also worked in the field of music, theatre, film and television, as well as composing for chi ...

, reggae artist Ghetto Priest and producer

Adrian Sherwood Adrian Maxwell Sherwood (born 20 January 1958, London, England) is an English record producer specialising in the genre of dub music. He has created a distinctive production style based on the application of dub effects and dub mixing techniques ...

, for that year's ''

La Biennale di Venezia The Venice Biennale (; it, La Biennale di Venezia) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation. The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of ...

'', and in 2017 in the

Scottish National Portrait Gallery The Scottish National Portrait Gallery is an art museum on Queen Street, Edinburgh. The gallery holds the national collections of portraits, all of which are of, but not necessarily by, Scots. It also holds the Scottish National Photography Co ...

, part of the 2017

Edinburgh Art Festival The Edinburgh Art Festival is an annual visual arts festival, held in Edinburgh, Scotland, during August and coincides with the Edinburgh International and Fringe festivals. The Art Festival was established in 2004, and receives public funding fr ...

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Slave's Lament, The Poetry by Robert Burns