"Auld Lang Syne," a song lyric composed by Robert Burns, stands as one of his most notable works and has carried his name across generations of singers and readers worldwide. Burns worked in both the English and Scots languages, and the piece reflects his practice across the genres of ballad and narrative poetry with which he engaged throughout his career. It remains the work most immediately connected to his name in popular memory.

Burns was born on 25 January 1759 in Alloway, a citizen of the Kingdom of Great Britain. He worked across several occupations simultaneously: poet, writer, songwriter, librettist, musicologist, and farmer. He composed in both English and Scots, and his output is associated with the Romanticism movement. His work in the genres of narrative poetry and the ballad runs throughout his body of writing.

Among his other notable works are the narrative poem "Tam o' Shanter," the lyric "To a Mouse," the song "Scots Wha Hae," the lyric "Ae Fond Kiss, and Then We Sever," the poem "Halloween," "The Battle of Sherramuir," and "Is There for Honest Poverty." These pieces demonstrate the range of forms Burns employed, from the ballad to the extended narrative poem, and show his sustained engagement with writing in both Scots and English across different subjects and occasions.

Burns died on 21 July 1796 in Dumfries, at the age of thirty-seven. Among the works he produced in the later period of his life, "Is There for Honest Poverty" and "Ae Fond Kiss, and Then We Sever" stand as concrete examples of his continued activity as a poet and songwriter up to the final years before his death in Dumfries.