This is one of the earliest manuscripts of the words we sing to mark the passage of one year and the dawn of a new one. Eighteenth-century Scottish poet Robert Burns wrote out the full text of “Auld Lang Syne” in a letter to a music publisher, claiming to have transcribed “an old song of the olden times” while listening to “an old man’s singing.” In the Scots language, the words of the song’s title mean old, long, and since. Combined, they mean, loosely, “time gone by” or “for old time’s sake.” The Burns version has become an international anthem of nostalgia, fellowship, and love.
Robert Burns (1759–1796), letter to George Thomson, September 1793. Purchased by J. Pierpont Morgan, 1906. MA 47.27.