Robert Aytoun of the first Scots to write in standard English. His major work was "Diophantus and Charidora". "Inconstancy Upbraided" is perhaps the best of his short poems. He is credited with a little poem, "Old Long Syne", which probably suggested Robert Burns's famous "Auld Lang Syne". He is also the author of a ballad called "Bothwell" about the battle fought by James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell with the border reiver, John Elliot of Park, also known as Little Jock Elliot or Little Jock of the Park. The ballad recounts how Bothwell, in attempting to arrest Little Jock Elliot, suffers life-threatening
William Auld William Auld William Auld (6 November 1924 – 11 September 2006) was a Scottish poet, author, translator and magazine editor who wrote chiefly in Esperanto. Auld was born at Erith in Kent, and then moved to Glasgow with his parents, attending Allan Glen's School. After wartime service in the Royal Armed Forces, he studied English Literature at Glasgow University, and then qualified as a teacher. In 1960, he was appointed to a secondary school in Alloa and he remained there for the rest of his life. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1999, 2004, and 2006,