L!B?ARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 RIVERSIDE 
 
 W. H. SMITH &- i. 
 
 BOOKSEIXERS AND STATIli 
 
 Pn)mCT:i(le. Cm i.TiN'-
 
 a
 
 POETRY £ff LIFE 
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY
 
 POETRY & LIFE SERIES 
 
 General Editor : 
 
 WILLIAM HENRY HUDSON 
 
 StaflF-Lecturer in Literature to the 
 
 University Extension Board of the 
 
 University of London 
 
 1. KEATS AND HIS POETRY 
 
 By William Henry Hudson 
 
 2. JOHNSON AND GOLDSMITH 
 
 AND THEIR POETRY 
 
 By Thomas Seccombe 
 
 3. GRAY AND HIS POETRY 
 
 By William Henry Hudson 
 
 4. SHELLEY AND HIS POETRY 
 
 By E. W. Edmunds, M.A. 
 
 5. COLERIDGE AND HIS 
 
 POETRY 
 
 By Kathleen E. Royds 
 
 6. MATTHEW ARNOLD AND 
 
 HIS POETRY 
 
 By Francis Bickley 
 
 7. LOWELL AND HIS POETRY 
 
 By William Henry Hudson 
 
 Other Volumes in actii'e preparation.
 
 '■^e/y Z/cU/Ay/tti
 
 B_U RN S 
 
 HIS POETRY 
 
 BY 
 
 H. A. KELLOW, M.A. 
 
 Head of the Engrlish Department, Allan 
 
 Glen's School, Glasgow ; Author of " A 
 
 Practical Training in English " 
 
 LONDON : GEORGE G. 
 HARRAP & COMPANY 
 
 9 PORTSMOUTH STREET 
 KINGSWAY W.C. -iS MCMXI
 
 '.■'O 
 
 ys^ 
 
 /^¥4. 
 
 Printed ky 
 
 BALLANTYNE & COMPANY LTD 
 
 AT THE BALLANTYNE PRESS 
 
 Tavistock Street Covent Garden 
 
 London
 
 GENERAL PREFACE 
 
 A GLANCE through the pages of this little 
 book will suffice to disclose the general 
 plan of the series of which it forms a 
 part. Only a few words of explanation, there- 
 fore, will be necessary. 
 
 The point of departure is the undeniable fact 
 that with the vast majority of young students 
 of literature a living interest in the work of any 
 poet can best be aroused, and an intelligent 
 appreciation of it secured, when it is immediately 
 associated with the character and career of the 
 poet himself. The cases are indeed few and far 
 between in which much fresh light will not be 
 thrown upon a poem by some knowledge of the 
 personality of the writer, while it will often be 
 found that the most direct — perhaps even the 
 only — way to the heart of its meaning lies 
 through a consideration of the circumstances 
 in which it had its birth. The purely aesthetic 
 critic may possibly object that a poem should 
 be regarded simply as a self-contained and 
 detached piece of art, having no personal 
 affiliations or bearings. Of the validity of this 
 as an abstract principle nothing need now be 
 said. The fact remains that, in the earlier 
 stages of study at any rate, poetry is most valued 
 and loved when it is made to seem most human 
 and vital ; and the human and vital interest 
 of poetry can be most surely brought home 
 to the reader by the biographical method of 
 interpretation. 
 
 5
 
 GENERAL PREFACE 
 
 This is to some extent recognised by writers 
 of histories and text-books of literature, and by 
 editors of selections from the works of our 
 poets ; for place is always given by them to a 
 certain amount of biographical material. But 
 in the histories and text-books the biography of 
 a given writer stands by itself, and his work 
 has to be sought elsewhere, the student being 
 left to make the connection for himself ; while 
 even in our current editions of selections there 
 is little systematic attempt to link biography, 
 step by step, with production. 
 
 This brings us at once to the chief purpose 
 of the present series. In this, biography and 
 production will be considered together and 
 in intimate association. In other words, an 
 endeavour will be made to interest the reader 
 in the lives and personalities of the poets dealt 
 with, and at the same time to use biography as 
 an introduction and key to their writings. 
 
 Each volume will therefore contain the life- 
 story of the poet who forms its subject. In this 
 attention will be specially directed to his per- 
 sonality as it expressed itself in his poetry, and 
 to the influences and conditions which counted 
 most as formative factors in the growth of his 
 genius. This biographical study will be used 
 as a setting for a selection, as large as space 
 will permit, of his representative poems. Such 
 poems, where possible, will be reproduced in 
 full, and care will be taken to bring out their 
 connection with his character, his circumstances, 
 and the movement of his mind. Then, in 
 6
 
 GENERAL PREFACE 
 
 addition, so much more general literary criti- 
 cism will be incorporated as may seem to^be 
 needed to supplement the biographical material, 
 and to exhibit both the essential qualities and 
 the historical importance of his work. ^ 
 
 It is believed that the plan thus pursued is 
 substantially in the nature of a new departure, 
 and that the volumes of this series, constituting 
 as they will an introduction to the study of 
 some of our greatest poets, will be found useful 
 to teachers and students of literature, and no 
 less to the general lover of English poetry. 
 
 WILLIAM HENRY HUDSON
 
 POEMS QUOTED IN 
 WHOLE OR IN PART 
 
 Handsome Nell 
 
 19 
 
 Mary Morison 
 
 27 
 
 The Epistle to Davie 
 
 33 
 
 Halloween 
 
 39 
 
 To a Mouse 
 
 40 
 
 To a Mountain Daisy 
 
 43 
 
 The Farmer's Salutation to his Auld 
 
 
 Mare 
 
 45 
 
 The Cotter's Saturday Night 
 
 46 
 
 Holy Willie's Prayer 
 
 55 
 
 Epistle to William Simson 
 
 56 
 
 To the Unco Guid 
 
 57 
 
 Farewell to the Banks of Ayr 
 
 64 
 
 A Bard's Epitaph 
 
 65 
 
 Epistle to a Young Friend 
 
 67 
 
 The Twa Brigs 
 
 71 
 
 The Lass o' Ballochmyle 
 
 72 
 
 Lines on Meeting with Lord Daer 
 
 74 
 
 Of a' the Airts the Wind can blaw 
 
 88 
 
 Auld Lang Syne 
 
 91 
 
 The Banks of Nith 
 
 92 
 
 The Banks o' Doon 
 
 92 
 
 Afton Water 
 
 93 
 
 Willie brew'd a Peck o' Maut 
 
 95 
 
 To Mary in Heaven 
 
 96 
 
 Tarn o' Shanter 
 
 99 
 
 A Man's a Man for a' That 
 
 112 
 
 A Red, Red Rose 
 
 119 
 
 Ae Fond Kiss 
 
 120 
 
 When I think on the Happy Days 
 
 120 
 
 0, wert thou in the Cauld Blast 
 
 121
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 The following list contains the titles of a few books 
 and essays which may be specially recommended for 
 the further study of Burns and his work : 
 
 Lockhart, J. G. : " Life of Burns." 
 
 Shairp, J. C. : " Burns " (English Men of Letters). 
 
 Blackie, J. S. : " Burns " (Great Writers). 
 
 Carlyle, T. : " Burns " (in " Critical and Miscellaneous 
 Essays," vol. ii.). 
 
 Henley and Henderson: "The Poetry of Robert 
 Burns " (the best text). 
 
 Note. — Blackie's volume in the " Great Writers " 
 series contains a very full bibliography. 
 
 lo
 
 BURNS AND 
 HIS POETRY 
 
 ROBERT BURNS, lawful son of William 
 Burnes, in AUoway, and Agnes Brown, 
 his spouse, was born January 25, 
 1759 : baptized by Mr. William Dalrymple. 
 Witnesses, John Tennant and James Young." 
 The birth, parentage, and christening of 
 the greatest Scottish poet are thus officially 
 recorded in the church registers of the parish 
 of Ayr and Alloway. Respectable witnesses, 
 officiating clergyman, mother, father, and child 
 — how many similar groups of individuals had 
 their names inscribed in the session books of 
 the Kirk of Scotland for that year ! And how 
 many names still lie there, hidden in decent 
 obscurity, alms for oblivion ! In all such bap- 
 tismal ceremonies the child must cut the greatest 
 figure : he is the great potentiality : what he 
 is to become no one can tell. It is improbable 
 that John Tennant and James Young, the 
 witnesses of this genuinely notable event, had 
 even a glimmering of the true importance of 
 the occasion. Humble bystanders at his first 
 sacrament, they could not be expected to realise 
 the future greatness of their honest neighbour's 
 bairn and to conceive of the genius that lay 
 dormant within his puny frame. Stark truth 
 it is that in the baptismal scene which the 
 official entry conjures to the imagination the 
 
 II
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 presiding genius is not the minister — reverend 
 doctor though he be — and not the parent, but 
 the Child, Robert Burns. 
 
 The world is not content to read the family 
 history of a great man solely from his birth 
 certificate. The ancestry of the poet has there- 
 fore been the subject of diligent inquiry. Burns 
 himself seems to have had the vaguest notions 
 of his lineage, but it can now be traced with 
 certainty on the father's side for five, and on 
 the mother's side for three generations. Agnes 
 Brown, the mother of Burns, was the daughter 
 of one Gilbert Brown, farmer at Craigenton, 
 in Kirkoswald Parish, Ayrshire. Her grand- 
 father was John Brown, also a farmer at Craig- 
 enton. The Browns appear to have been Cove- 
 nanters, and the poet believed that the famous 
 John Brown of Priesthill, the stubborn Presby- 
 terian who was shot by Claverhouse's troopers 
 in 1685, belonged to his mother's family. Seizing 
 upon this fact, some writers have attributed to 
 the influence of heredity a certain dourness of 
 disposition and rebellious spirit towards autho- 
 rity which Burns undoubtedly evinced. But 
 this is altogether fanciful, and is discounted 
 by the fact that on the paternal side the poet's 
 ancestors were perfervid Royalists, and Jacobites 
 to boot. Writing to Dr. John Moore, the physi- 
 cian and novelist, on August 2, 1787, Burns 
 asserted that his forefathers rented land of the 
 famous, noble Keiths of Marshal (the Earls 
 Marischal), and had the honour to share their 
 fate. The distinguished Scottish house of Keith 
 12
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 forfeited their title and estates in the Fifteen, 
 and their adherents, among whom was the 
 poet's grandfather, were plundered and driven 
 out. This grandfather, Robert Burnes, rented 
 a poor farm near Stonehaven, Kincardineshire. 
 He was unable to support his large family of 
 ten children on this farm, and although the 
 yearly rent was only £io 8s. 4d. sterling, he 
 fell into arrears, and latterly was compelled 
 to quit his holding. His third son, William 
 Burnes, born in 1721, determined to try his 
 fortune in the south, and, after a spell of work 
 as a gardener in Edinburgh, migrated to Ayr- 
 shire in 1750. At Alloway he set up as a nur- 
 seryman or market-gardener, leasing seven 
 acres of land for that purpose. On December 
 15, 1757, he married Agnes Brown, and they 
 forthwith took up house in a clay cottage which 
 he had built with his own hands. In this cottage 
 their famous son, Robert Burns, the poet, was 
 born. From all this it will appear that Burns 
 was descended from rather a poverty-stricken 
 tenant-farmer stock, and that, as he himself 
 phrased it, he " was born a very poor man's 
 son." 
 
 Although Burns 's mother was never able to 
 write even her name, her husband was a man 
 of some education. He could both read and 
 write ; and in those days that was indeed an 
 accomplishment for a person of his class. But, 
 after all, these are almost mechanical attain- 
 ments, and they must be regarded as the least 
 noteworthy of William Burnes 's claims to dis- 
 
 13
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 Unction. His strong intellect, his high character, 
 his very speech marked him out as superior to 
 his neighbours. A devout man, much conversant 
 with the speculative theology engendered by the 
 brooding Calvinism of the age, he had high 
 ideals of family life, and both by precept and 
 example took care to lead his children in the 
 path of virtue. He exerted himself as their 
 instructor, with the result that in after years 
 his family were always regarded as the most 
 book-learned in the parish. To him the poet 
 owed most of his early education. In 1765, 
 when Robert was in his sixth year, the father 
 cast about to procure outside assistance in this 
 task. In the month of March he interviewed, 
 at Ayr, a young teacher named John Murdoch, 
 and in the May following he took the lead in 
 establishing Murdoch at Alloway, being one of 
 five who guaranteed to board the teacher by 
 turns and to make up a certain salary for him 
 should the fees prove insufficient. At a time 
 when a cotter, without incurring disgrace or 
 even censure, might have neglected altogether 
 the formal education of his offspring, it is 
 remarkable that William Burnes should be 
 found making these uncommon exertions on 
 behalf of his family. 
 
 But the best that William Burnes could 
 afford seems now poor indeed. John Murdoch 
 was a raw lad of eighteen when he began to 
 teach the little school at Alloway. His attain- 
 ments in after life were considerable ; but at 
 this period he certainly did not far surpass 
 J4
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 William Burnes in scholarship. The latter 
 acted as co-instructor to his own boys while 
 they were under Murdoch's charge, and the 
 result was that between the two preceptors the 
 lads made excellent progress. " Though I cost 
 the schoolmaster some thrashings," wrote 
 Robert in 1787, in an autobiographical letter 
 to Dr. Moore, " I made an excellent English 
 scholar ; and against the years of ten or eleven, 
 I was absolutely a critic in substantives, verbs, 
 and particles." This proficiency in grammar 
 must be attributed directly to Murdoch, and 
 fortunately he has left an interesting account 
 of how it was attained. Thirty-three years after 
 he began his work at Alloway he thus described 
 his early teaching experiences : '* Robert and 
 his younger brother, Gilbert, had been grounded 
 a little in English before they were put under 
 my care. They both made a rapid progress in 
 reading, and a tolerable progress in writing. 
 In reading, dividing words into syllables by 
 rule, spelling without book, parsing sentences, 
 &c., Robert and Gilbert were generally at the 
 upper end of the class, even when ranged with 
 boys far their seniors. The books most com- 
 monly used in the school were the * Spelling 
 Book,' the New Testament, the Bible, Masson's 
 * Collection of Prose and Verse,' and Fisher's 
 ' English Grammar.' They committed to 
 memory the hymns and other poems of that 
 collection with uncommon facility. This facility 
 was partly owing to the method pursued by 
 their father and me in instructing them, which 
 
 IS
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 was, to make them thoroughly acquainted 
 with the meaning of every word in each sen- 
 tence that was to be committed to memory. As 
 soon as they were capable of it, I taught them 
 to turn verse into its natural prose order ; 
 sometimes to substitute synonymous expressions 
 for poetical words, and to supply all the ellipses." 
 It is noteworthy that the early education of 
 Burns was almost exclusively literary. His 
 weakness in handwriting was, some years 
 afterwards, remedied at the parish school of 
 Dalrymple which he and Gilbert attended, 
 week about, for a quarter. Burns certainly did 
 not count it a baseness to write fair. He always 
 took great pride in his correspondence, and the 
 manuscripts of his poems are invariably written 
 in a neat, legible hand. The instruction in 
 arithmetic provided by Murdoch was probably 
 also defective. But as an English teacher 
 Murdoch undoubtedly excelled, and in English 
 Burns proved himself an apt pupil. He soon 
 gained fluency and correctness of expression, 
 and thus laid the foundation for that skill in 
 conversation for which he was afterwards 
 famous. His memory was from the very first 
 remarkably retentive : he had almost all the 
 New Testament by heart. The first prose piece 
 in which he took particular pleasure was " The 
 Vision of Mirza " ; the earliest verse, Addison's 
 hymn beginning ** How are Thy servants blest, 
 O Lord." These he found in his school reader. 
 The first reading that he did outside school hours 
 was " The Life of Hannibal," lent him by 
 i6
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 Murdoch, and " The History of Sir William 
 Wallace," lent by a friendly blacksmith. The 
 former stirred him to a boyish enthusiasm for 
 a soldier's life ; the latter endowed him with 
 the perfervid patriotism peculiar to the Scot. 
 
 If these books were read at Alloway, Burns 
 
 was not then eight years old. What modern 
 
 child of that age finds pleasure in Addison's 
 
 " Vision of Mirza " ? But it is more probable 
 
 that, precocious as Burns undoubtedly was, 
 
 these books were read at Mount Oliphant, a 
 
 poor upland farm of seventy acres in the parish 
 
 of Ayr, to which William Burnes removed in 
 
 1766. Mount Oliphant lay two miles distant 
 
 from Alloway, and for a time Robert and 
 
 Gilbert trudged that long road to the school. 
 
 Murdoch records that their attendance became 
 
 irregular and that latterly they ceased coming 
 
 altogether. The whole time that Robert attended 
 
 cannot have been much more than two years. 
 
 Other causes forced Murdoch to give up his 
 
 little school, but before leaving Alloway he 
 
 visited Mount Oliphant, and from his small 
 
 store of books he gave Robert, as a parting 
 
 present, an English Grammar, and purposed 
 
 giving him a copy of " Titus Andronicus " also. 
 
 The teacher spent some of the time reading 
 
 portions of this sordid play to the family circle, 
 
 and Robert, it is recorded, burst into tears at the 
 
 treatment of the heroine and refused to accept 
 
 the present of such a horrible book. William 
 
 Burnes chid his son for this ingratitude, but 
 
 Murdoch, perhaps more" pleased than otherwise 
 
 B 17
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 at the display of sensibility, left in its stead a 
 comedy translated from the French, entitled 
 "The School for Love." Burns was then 
 between nine and ten years of age, and to a boy 
 of so ardent a temperament and imagination 
 the work of the farm, which he was now called 
 upon to share, must have been very uncongenial. 
 Burns ever afterwards spoke of this period with 
 bitterness of soul. His father had commenced 
 farming on borrowed capital, and from the 
 start he was unfortunate. He lost some of his 
 cattle by accidents and disease, and the very 
 soil he tilled was the poorest ever cultivated. 
 Strict economy was needed, and the family had 
 to subsist on the hardest fare. Nevertheless 
 William Burnes did what he could for the 
 education of his family. When the labours of 
 the day were over he instructed his children 
 himself. His eldest son mentions the fact that 
 the whole Burns household used to practise 
 arithmetic in the long winter evenings, a candle 
 being set in their midst. The father did his 
 best to procure books for his elder boys, and 
 amongst those which Robert devoured were 
 "Pamela," "Peregrine Pickle," a volume of 
 " English History," a collection of " English 
 Songs," "The Edinburgh Magazine" for 
 1772, Pope's "Works," and certain pieces of 
 poetry such as were then hawked through the 
 country or sold at fairs at a penny each. These 
 last consisted of ballads and songs — some of 
 distinct literary value — and played no small 
 part in the training of the poet. Thus, although 
 18
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 Burns had little regular schooling, he was in 
 the way of acquiring a fair education. More- 
 over in 1773 he was sent to Ayr to study under 
 Murdoch for a few weeks in order that he should 
 revise his grammar and be better qualified to 
 instruct his brothers and sisters at home. But 
 even this chance of improvement was jeopar- 
 dised ; he had been at Ayr only one week 
 when he was recalled to assist in the harvest. 
 Afterwards he was allowed to go back for two 
 weeks. Judged by modern standards, a total of 
 three weeks' instruction — broken in upon at 
 that — seems ridiculously small ; but to a lad 
 of the keenness, intelligence, and extraordinary 
 gifts of Burns it proved very valuable. 
 
 When he was summoned from Ayr to the 
 harvest-field it happened that the partner of 
 his labours was a " bonnie, sweet, sonsie lass " 
 named Nelly Kilpatrick, a young girl of about 
 his own age. As she worked she sang a song 
 which had been composed by a neighbouring 
 country lad, and Burns in emulation made up 
 a song about the singer. Thus was his first 
 poem born. 
 
 HANDSOME NELL 
 
 O, once I lov'd a bonnie lass. 
 
 Aye, and I love her still ! 
 And whilst that virtue warms my breast 
 
 I'll love my handsome Nell. 
 
 As bonnie lasses I hae seen, 
 And mony full as braw, 
 
 19
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 But for a modest gracefu' mien 
 The like I never saw. 
 
 A bonnie lass, I will confess, 
 
 Is pleasant to the e'e ; 
 But, without some better qualities, 
 
 She's no a lass for me. 
 
 But Nelly's looks are blithe and sweet, 
 
 And, what is best of a*, 
 Her reputation is complete, 
 
 And fair without a flaw. 
 
 She dresses aye sae clean and neat, 
 
 Both decent and genteel : 
 And, then there's something in her gait 
 
 Gars ony dress look weel. 
 
 A gaudy dress and gentle air 
 May slightly touch the heart ; 
 
 But it's innocence and modesty 
 That polishes the dart. 
 
 'Tis this in Nelly pleases me, 
 
 'Tis this enchants my soul ! 
 For absolutely in my breast 
 
 She reigns without control. 
 
 Burns is said to have written this poem in 
 1773 — that is, when he was in his fifteenth 
 summer. There is no remarkable precocity 
 here. Pope wrote an ode on * * Solitude ' ' before 
 he was twelve ; at fourteen he made a verse 
 translation of the ** Thebais " ; at sixteen he 
 produced his " Pastorals." When fifteen 
 20
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 Milton translated two Psalms which he after- 
 wards thought worthy of publication. Abraham 
 Cowley wrote " Pyramus and Thisbe " when 
 he was ten, and actually published a volume of 
 poetry when he was fifteen. Many such early 
 instances, not only of power of language but 
 of comprehension of things, might be culled 
 from literary history. Even in the present age 
 the schools have smart boys able to write pass- 
 able verse. Nevertheless the first work of a 
 great poet must always be scanned with interest. 
 The poem, as it stands, may not be the original 
 version, for Burns certainly was at work on 
 it ten years later than 1773. How far it was 
 then retouched it is impossible to say : probably 
 very little. The poet himself has criticised it 
 adversely ; he thinks it puerile and silly : but 
 many critics pretend to see in it the promise and 
 potency of future greatness. It is certainly 
 not silly ; but its lack of passion is evidence 
 of its puerility. To the student of Burns's 
 poetry its interest lies in its form — that of the 
 song ; its theme — love ; and its inspiration — 
 music. 
 
 Robert had left Ayr a schoolboy : he returned 
 a poet. And this fact doubtless explains the 
 fierce enthusiasm with which he attacked his 
 studies. His teacher marvelled at it : " He 
 was now with me day and night, in school, at 
 all meals, and in all my walks. At the end of 
 one week I told him that as he was now pretty 
 much master of the parts of speech, I should 
 like to teach him something of French. Robert 
 
 21
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 was glad to hear of the proposal, and imme- 
 diately we attacked the French with great 
 courage. He was hourlyllaying in a stock of 
 words and even of phrases. At the end of our 
 second week of the study of French we began 
 to read a little of * The Adventures of Tele- 
 machus ' in Fenelon's own words," This 
 book and a dictionary Robert took back to 
 Mount Oliphant, and in a little while, with 
 their assistance, he acquired such a knowledge 
 of the language as to read and understand any 
 French prose. Elated with his success and 
 thirsting for more knowledge, he purchased a 
 Latin grammar, but, finding it dry and unin- 
 teresting, gave it up in disgust. In his scanty 
 leisure he read everything that came his way, 
 and when he had nothing fresh to read he read 
 and re-read the old books. On the farm he 
 had to do the work of a grown man, for his 
 father could not afford hired help. There is 
 some evidence that Robert resented the way 
 in which his labour was exploited. William 
 Burnes, though a just, was also a hard man, 
 and it is probable that there was an occasional 
 conflict of wills between father and son. And 
 while it is recognised that the father acted in 
 the best interests of all his family, yet it seems 
 hard that a lad, ambitious to be a scholar, 
 should have to toil and moil in all the drudgery 
 of farm work. However, it had to be done, and 
 two years passed in sore labour before the 
 young student had again the chance of following 
 the natural bent of his mind. 
 
 22
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 In his seventeenth year Burns attended a 
 school at Kirkoswald, and there he took lessons 
 in arithmetic, diaUing, and land-surveying. 
 This was an excellent training for a farmer 
 with aspirations, but the company of young 
 ardent spirits with whom he was thrown into 
 contact probably did more for him than did 
 the mathematical instruction of the pedagogue. 
 Burns was eager to compete against his fellows, 
 and entered with zest into all manner of con- 
 tests. In conversation, in disputations, and in 
 the intellectual combats generally he proved 
 his prowess, but in the ordinary sports and 
 pastimes he did not distinguish himself. Even 
 at this time his frame had taken the ploughman 
 set : he was a strong, slow-moving, cumbrous 
 sort of person. The impress of those early 
 years of premature toil at Mount Oliphant 
 could never be effaced. Meanwhile his heart 
 was young, and when he was introduced to 
 fair Peggy Thomson he must needs celebrate 
 the occasion with song. The song in honour 
 of Peggy, so far as is known, is his second 
 attempt at verse. It is said that he composed 
 several other songs while at Kirkoswald, but 
 nothing can be assigned with certainty to this 
 period. He carefully studied the art of prose- 
 writing, and soon began to take pride in 
 his ability to turn out a touching ** billet- 
 doux." 
 
 The summer which Burns spent at Kirkoswald 
 was one of the great formative periods of his 
 life. It gave him a turn for sociability and took 
 
 23
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 him out of himself. Before he went he was 
 brooding, distant, suspicious, uncompanionable : 
 when he returned he was hail-fellow-well-met 
 with acquaintances, he possessed great facility 
 of address, and in an argument he had a tongue 
 with a tang. In the years immediately succeed- 
 ing his sojourn at Kirkoswald he even blossomed 
 forth as a dandy. He wore the only tied hair 
 in the parish of Tarbolton, his plaid was always 
 wrapped round him in a distinctive manner, 
 and his whole bearing bespoke the man of 
 originality and genius. He enlarged his reading 
 considerably, and began to betray a taste for 
 the polemical literature of religion and philo- 
 sophy. At Tarbolton he was accustomed to 
 meet with kindred spirits, and in order that 
 they might have some definite and formal 
 organisation he founded the Bachelors' Club, 
 a kind of debating society. He drew up its 
 constitution, presided over its meetings, and 
 carefully prepared the speeches which he 
 delivered there. This in itself was an admirable 
 training for him, though the lofty and philo- 
 sophic opinions expressed at these meetings 
 showed a peculiarly unworldly outlook on 
 life. 
 
 That Burns was enabled to do all these things 
 indicates some betterment in the family for- 
 tunes. In 1777 William Burnes had removed 
 from Mount Oliphant and had entered on the 
 tenancy of another farm, Lochlea ; and the 
 change seems at first to have put him in posses- 
 sion of some needful cash. Robert and Gilbert 
 24
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 now received wages for their labour, being paid 
 at the rate of seven pounds per annum apiece. 
 In addition their father gave them, as a private 
 venture, the use of certain land in return for 
 a fixed rent, in order to grow flax, then a 
 profitable crop in the West of Scotland, but now 
 no longer grown. Robert at this time had a 
 mind to set up house, and had high hopes 
 of making money enough to support a wife. 
 When about twenty-two he had fallen in 
 love with one Ellison Begbie, the daughter of 
 a farmer in the district. Naturally she inspired 
 him to write something in her honour, and he 
 wrote both prose and verse to her. In a song 
 of similes, her charms are catalogued after the 
 usual fashion of young poets in love. This 
 production is, on the whole, artificial ; many 
 of the similes are the stock-in-trade of all 
 versifiers, and where Burns strikes out an 
 original one it is not always with happy effect. 
 More remarkable than the verse are the letters 
 which he wrote to Ellison. The correspondence 
 shows that already Burns had developed great 
 facility of expression and an extraordinary 
 range of construction and vocabulary. It is 
 doubtful whether the servant girl thoroughly 
 understood the compositions of the young 
 farmer, for they are philosophical disquisitions 
 rather than love-letters. This is not strange 
 when it is understood that in almost every 
 letter Burns had a definite model in front of 
 him, taken from a collection of the letters by 
 the wits of Queen Anne's reign. Soulful protes- 
 ts
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 tations of love cannot be based upon "a com- 
 plete letter-writer. ' ' Nevertheless the courtship 
 proceeded smoothly enough for some time, and 
 Burns prudently determined to learn the art of 
 flax-dressing so that he would reap a greater 
 profit from the flax grown on the farm. He 
 made all arrangements to proceed to the town 
 of Irvine for this purpose, but just prior to his 
 leaving Lochlea fate dealt him a cruel blow : 
 the servant girl refused the poet in terms which 
 admitted no dubiety. Burns wrote a philosophic 
 reply, but at the same time he felt deeply, and 
 therefore set out for Irvine in despondent mood. 
 The enterprise so inauspiciously begun had a 
 disastrous ending. His shop in Irvine caught 
 fire, and he was reduced to absolute poverty. 
 Finally he had to return. During the months 
 which he spent at Irvine — from midsummer 
 1 78 1 to March 1782 — he brooded much over 
 his sorrows. He wrote melancholy letters to 
 his father, and seems at one time to have con- 
 templated suicide. It is therefore not to be 
 wondered at that such poetical compositions 
 as have been preserved from this period strike 
 a mournful note. "Winter, a Dirge," after- 
 wards described by Burns as " the eldest of 
 my printed pieces," is said to have been written 
 then. 
 
 Back to the work of the farm, Burns was not 
 long in throwing aside his love-sorrow. Al- 
 though 5 Murdoch had noticed atfAlloway that 
 Robert had a poor ear for music and a most 
 untunable voice, yet at this time the disappointed 
 26
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 lover practised assiduously the fiddle and the 
 German flute and acquired a certain amount of 
 musical skill. His old joviality returned. His 
 social powers were greater than ever. His know- 
 ledge of life and of the world had increased 
 from his sojourn in the seaport town, and 
 although up till this period he had known not 
 the joys of the wine-cup, he was now able to 
 mix fearlessly in convivial company and to take 
 off his glass with the best of them. So he himself 
 asserted ; but there is strong evidence that 
 with the licence of a poet he exaggerated his 
 prowess as a drinker. He afterwards sang the 
 joys of drinking with an alluring charm, and 
 the Bacchanalian taint is thus early manifested 
 in '* John Barleycorn," an improvement on an 
 old ballad. Entering with zest into all forms of 
 rustic gaiety, he attended balls and paid more 
 or less court to every country maiden that took 
 his passing fancy. None of these attachments 
 were of a lasting nature, but nevertheless they 
 inspired several of his love-songs, " Mary Mori- 
 son, ""The Rigs of Barley," " My Nannie, Oh," 
 and others. 
 
 MARY MORISON 
 
 O Mary, at thy window be ! 
 
 It is the wished, the trysted hour ! 
 Those smiles and glances let me see, 
 
 That makes the miser's treasure poor : 
 How blithely wad I bide the stoure, 
 
 A weary slave frae sun to sun, 
 Could I the rich reward secure — 
 
 The lovely Mary Morison ! 
 
 27
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 Yestreen, when to the trembling string, 
 
 The dance gaed through the lighted ha', 
 To thee my fancy took its wing — 
 
 I sat, but neither heard nor saw. 
 Though this was fair, and that was braw. 
 
 And yon the toast of a' the town, 
 I sighed, and said amang them a', 
 
 ' ' Ye are na Mary Morison ! ' ' 
 
 O Mary, canst thou wreck his peace 
 
 Wha for thy sake wad gladly die ? 
 Or canst thou break that heart of his 
 
 Whase only faut is loving thee ? 
 If love for love thou wilt na gi'e, 
 
 At least be pity to me shown ; 
 A thought ungentle canna be 
 
 The thought o' Mary Morison. 
 
 Thus early Burns showed his preference for 
 the lyric. The song " Mary Morison " is a 
 masterpiece : nothing in it can be wished 
 otherwise : it has the unerring touch of the 
 trained craftsman. Burns seems all at once to 
 have cast his shackles from him and to have 
 bounded forward, taking a short cut to per- 
 fection. Doubtless, like most young poets, he 
 had experimented with various poetic forms, 
 but of such "juvenilia" singularly little 
 remains. Moreover, much of his apprentice- 
 ship work was never committed to writing, for 
 he had an extraordinary gift of composing a 
 whole poem in his head, of correcting and 
 polishing it without reference to paper, and, if 
 he were satisfied with it, of then writing it out 
 from memory. This characteristic must be 
 28
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 borne in mind, for it explains how he was 
 afterwards able to produce a large body of 
 poetry without apparent effort, and how on 
 that account he came to be regarded as a mar- 
 vellously inspired poet, untaught by rules of 
 art. Curiously enough, all his earliest models 
 were English. He had really few opportunities 
 of making himself acquainted with the master- 
 pieces of old Scottish poetry. Indeed, probably 
 all the Scottish verse he knew had been in the 
 form of songs and ballads learnt orally. His 
 ambition had been towards the speaking and 
 writing of correct English. But in 1782 he 
 discovered Fergusson's poems, and thereafter 
 he never faltered in his allegiance to the Scotch 
 vernacular as a medium of literary expression. 
 As was his habit, he selected a particular poem 
 for study and imitation, criticising it line by 
 line and aspiring always to improve upon the 
 model. Thus many of his poems are directly 
 suggested by those of Fergusson, but in execu- 
 tion and technique he soon left his master far 
 behind. Had he not been superabundantly 
 gifted with imagination, this method of imita- 
 tion might have proved exceedingly dangerous, 
 for there was every chance of his becoming 
 nothing but a cold copyist. It was from his 
 study of Fergusson that he developed that 
 inspired use of dialect which had been absent 
 from Scottish poetry since the days of Allan 
 Ramsay. But the first work in which he evinced 
 this peculiar power over dialect was not due 
 to Fergusson. " The Death and Dying Words of 
 
 29
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 Poor Mailie," a humorous poem with a serious 
 lesson, was suggested by Skinner's " Ewie wi' 
 the Crookit Horn," or by Hamilton's " Last 
 Dying Words of Bonny Heck," and shows not 
 only a complete mastery of dialect, but also a 
 certain dramatic deftness in the telling of a 
 story which serves to rivet the reader's atten- 
 tion. In this poem and in its companion piece, 
 ** Poor Mailie's Elegy," Burns discovered the 
 great secret of how to select from the world 
 of commonplaces some incident of daily life, 
 of how to illuminate it with poetic imagination 
 without any sacrifice of naturalness and truth, 
 and of how to work upon the sympathies of the 
 reader so that he seems to see with the eyes of 
 the poet himself. None of Burns's poetry, 
 certainly none of his earlier poetry, was ever 
 written with deliberate intent to publish. Out 
 of pure exaltation of spirit and unhampered by 
 the cramping fear of criticism, he sang to 
 please himself. 
 
 While Burns was thus unconsciously realising 
 his poetic mission things were not going 
 well with the household at Lochlea. The 
 old bad luck pursued his father's affairs. 
 William Burnes fell into arrears with his rent 
 and became involved in a lawsuit about the 
 conditions of his lease. He had grown old and 
 feeble, and in June 1783 it became evident that 
 the hand of death was upon him. He lingered 
 on till February 13, 1784, when he died. His 
 body was laid to rest in Alloway Kirkyard. 
 His last hours were embittered by the fear of a 
 30
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 debtors' prison, for the lawsuit had been decided 
 against him and he had been adjudged bankrupt. 
 The family was dispossessed of the farm, the 
 stock and plenishing being sold off to satisfy 
 the landlord's claim. The wages of Robert, 
 Gilbert, and the other grown-up members of 
 the family had not been paid, and it was only 
 by ranking as creditors on their father's estate 
 that they were able to save a few belongings from 
 the general wreck. The two brothers, shortly 
 before the crisis — at Martinmas, 1783, to be 
 exact^ — -had taken a farm sublet to them by a 
 lawyer, Gavin Hamilton, afterwards the firm 
 friend of the poet. It lay not far from the little 
 town of Mauchline and was called Mossgiel. 
 To this new farm the whole household removed 
 after the death of William Burnes. 
 
 The two brothers entered upon their tenancy 
 with high hopes and good resolutions. Robert 
 spared no pains : "I read farming books — I 
 calculated crops — I attended markets." But 
 their slender capital left no margin for con- 
 tingencies. They were supplied with bad seed. 
 They lost half of their poor crop through a 
 late harvest. Hopes being thus blasted, the 
 good resolutions, at least on Robert's part, 
 did not stand long against adversity. He gradu- 
 ally left the management of the farm to his 
 younger brother, and though he did his share 
 of the manual labour and toiled sorely, yet his 
 heart was not in his task. The claims of poesy 
 became insistent. After he had done his day's 
 work he used to retire to a little garret, lit by 
 
 31
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 a narrow roof-light, to transcribe the verses 
 which he had composed in the fields. These 
 were no longer confined to passionate love- 
 lyrics, but touched, at all points, the life with 
 which he was familiar. Variety is now the 
 characteristic where before there had almost 
 been monotony. During the two years from 
 1784 to 1786 he poured forth a continuous 
 stream of poetry, extraordinary in volume and 
 depth, but not altogether surprising when regard 
 is had to the severe discipline and training to 
 which he had previously subjected himself. At 
 the first he wrote with no thought of publishing, 
 and thus his earlier work is very intimately 
 associated with his personality. 
 
 Especially is this the case with his Epistles. 
 These letters to his familiar friends, generally 
 written off-hand and with all the ease of a 
 simple reply to a correspondent, are full of reve- 
 lations of his real life, and thus constitute bio- 
 graphy of a somewhat unconscious kind. One 
 of his associates in the Bachelors' Club was the 
 schoolmaster at Irvine, David Sillar, son of a 
 Tarbolton farmer. Him Burns addressed in 
 an epistle as " Davie, a Brother-Poet, Lover, 
 Ploughman, and Fiddler." "The Epistle to 
 Davie," after alluding to the joys and sorrows 
 of the poet's daily life, in several stanzas of 
 homely philosophy marked by a cheery 
 optimism, rises almost to lyric fervour in the 
 praise of love. In the last stanza, a sort of 
 anti-climax. Burns, as if half-apologising for his 
 work, shows rare modesty and much sly humour. 
 32
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 THE EPISTLE TO DAVIE 
 
 While winds frae aff Ben Lomond blaw, 
 And bar the doors wi' driving snaw, 
 
 And hing us owre the ingle, 
 I set me down to pass the time, 
 And spin a verse or twa o* rhyme. 
 
 In hamely westlin' jingle. 
 While frosty winds blaw in the drift, 
 
 Ben to the chimla lug, 
 I grudge a wee the great folk's gift. 
 That live sae bien an' snug : 
 
 I tent less, and want less, 
 
 Their roomy fireside ; 
 But hanker, and canker. 
 To see their cursed pride. 
 
 It's hardly in a body's power 
 
 To keep, at times, frae being sour, 
 
 To see how things are shared ; 
 How best o' chiels are whiles in want. 
 While coofs on countless thousands rant. 
 
 And ken na how to ware't : 
 But, Davie, lad, ne'er fash your head, 
 
 Though we ha'e little gear, 
 We're fit to win our daily bread, 
 As lang's we're hale and fier : 
 
 " Mair spier na, no fear na," 
 Auld age ne'er mind a feg, 
 The last o't, the warst o't. 
 Is only but to beg. 
 
 To lie in kilns and barns at e'en. 
 When banes are crazed, and bluid is thin, 
 Is, doubtless, great distress ; 
 
 c 33
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 Yet then content could make us blest ; 
 E'en then, sometimes we'd snatch a taste 
 
 Of truest happiness. 
 The honest heart that's free frae a' 
 
 Intended fraud or guile, 
 However fortune kick the ba*, 
 Has aye some cause to smile, 
 
 And mind still, you'll find still, 
 
 A comfort this nae sma' ; 
 Nae mair then, we'll care then, 
 Nae farther can we fa'. 
 
 What though, like commoners of air, 
 We wander out, we know not where, 
 
 But either house or hall ? 
 Yet Nature's charms, the hills and woods, 
 The sweeping vales, and foaming floods. 
 
 Are free alike to all. 
 In days when daisies deck the ground, 
 
 And blackbirds whistle clear, 
 With honest joy our hearts will bound 
 To see the coming year : 
 
 On braes when we please, then. 
 
 We'll sit an' sowth a tune ; 
 Syne rhyme till't, we'll time till't, 
 And sing't when we hae done. 
 
 It's no in titles nor in rank ; 
 
 It's no in wealth like Lon'on bank, 
 
 To purchase peace and rest ; 
 It's no in making muckle, mair : 
 It's no in books ; it's no in lear, 
 
 To make us truly blest : 
 If happiness ha'e not her seat 
 
 And centre in the breast, 
 
 34
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 We may be wise, or rich, or great, 
 But never can be blest ! 
 
 Nae treasures, nor pleasures, 
 
 Could make us happy lang : 
 The heart aye's the part aye, 
 That makes us right or wrang. 
 
 Think ye, that sic as you and I, 
 
 Wha drudge and drive through wet an' dry, 
 
 Wi' never-ceasing toil ; 
 Think ye, are we less blest than they, 
 Wha scarcely tent us in their way, 
 
 As hardly worth their while ? 
 Alas ! how aft in haughty mood, 
 
 God's creatures they oppress 1 
 Or else, neglecting a' that's guid. 
 They riot in excess ! 
 
 Baith careless, and fearless 
 Of either heaven or hell ; 
 Esteeming, and deeming 
 It a' an idle tale ! 
 
 Then let us cheerfu' acquiesce ; 
 Nor make our scanty pleasures less. 
 
 By pining at our state ; 
 And, even should misfortunes come, 
 I, here wha sit, hae met wi' some, 
 
 An's thankfu' for them yet. 
 They gi'e the wit of age to youth ; 
 
 They let us ken oursel' ; 
 They make us see the naked truth, 
 The real guid and ill. 
 
 Though losses, and crosses. 
 
 Be lessons right severe, 
 There's wit there, ye'll get there, 
 Ye'il find nae other where. 
 
 35
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 But tent me, Davie, ace o' hearts ! 
 
 (To say aught less wad wrang the cartes, 
 
 And flattery I detest,) 
 This life has joys for you and I ; 
 And joys that riches ne'er could buy ; 
 
 And joys the very best. 
 There's a' the pleasures o' the heart, 
 
 The lover an' the frien' ; 
 Ye ha'e your Meg, your dearest part. 
 And I my darling Jean ! 
 
 It warms me, it charms me, 
 
 To mention but her name ; 
 It heats me, it beets me, 
 And sets me a' on flame ! 
 
 O all ye Powers who rule above ! 
 O Thou, whose very self art love ! 
 
 Thou know'st my words sincere ! 
 The life-blood streaming through my heart. 
 Or my more dear immortal part, 
 
 Is not more fondly dear ! 
 When heart-corroding care and grief 
 
 Deprive my soul of rest. 
 Her dear idea brings relief 
 And solace to my breast. 
 
 Thou Being, All-seeing, 
 
 Oh, hear my fervent prayer ! 
 Still take her, and make her 
 Thy most peculiar care ! 
 
 All hail, ye tender feelings dear ! 
 The smile of love, the friendly tear, 
 
 The sympathetic glow ; 
 Long since, this world's thorny ways 
 Had numbered out my weary days, 
 
 Had it not been for you I 
 36
 
 BURNS (Sf H I S POETRY 
 
 Fate still has blest me with a friend 
 
 In every care and ill ; 
 And oft a more endearing band, 
 A tie more tender still. 
 
 It lightens, it brightens 
 The tenebrific scene, 
 To meet with, and greet with 
 My Davie or my Jean ! 
 
 Oh, how that Name inspires my style ! 
 The words come skelpin rank and file, 
 
 Amaist before I ken ! 
 The ready measure rins as fine. 
 As Phoebus and the famous Nine 
 
 Were glowrin' owre my pen. 
 My spaviet Pegasus will limp. 
 
 Till ance he's fairly het ; 
 And then he'll hilch, and stilt, and jimp, 
 And rin an unco fit ; 
 
 But lest then, the beast then 
 Should rue this hasty ride, 
 I'll 'light now, and dight now 
 His sweaty, wizened hide. 
 
 The "darling Jean" alluded to in "The 
 Epistle to Davie " was Jean Armour, the most 
 famous of all Burns's heroines. She first met 
 the poet at the ball with which the Mauchline 
 races closed in the year 1784. She was then 
 about eighteen or nineteen years of age, and the 
 poet was at once attracted to her. The courtship 
 did not run smoothly, for Jean's father, a 
 master mason in Mauchline, cordially detested 
 Burns ; why is not quite clear. Probably at 
 some convivial meeting he had felt the lash of 
 
 37
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 the poet's tongue and remembered it against 
 his daughter's lover. Jean suffered much for 
 Burns. The courtship was clandestine ; her 
 lover could not provide her with a home ; her 
 father was suspicious and latterly turned his 
 daughter out of doors. But this is anticipating. 
 Suffice it to say now that the lovers met fre- 
 quently, and that although Burns wrote no 
 songs directly in her honour, at this period, he 
 made reference to her in several poems and 
 showed no sign of his previous fickleness. 
 
 It is a remarkable feature of these two won- 
 derful years at Mossgiel that Burns seemed all 
 at once to realise the poetic material which 
 lay around him. Never at a loss for a subject, 
 he chose from the large mass of the old and 
 familiar, and gave written expression to what 
 had been mentally noted by countless observers. 
 The poem " Halloween " illustrates this admi- 
 rably. This is the picturesque way in which 
 Carlyle puts it : " Our Halloween had passed 
 and repassed, in rude awe and laughter, since 
 the era of the Druids ; but no Theocritus till 
 Burns discerned in it the materials of a Scottish 
 idyll." " Halloween " is rather long to quote. 
 Modelled after Fergusson's " Leith Races," it 
 is a descriptive poem of the true pastoral class 
 — that is, its scenes and characters are real, 
 not imaginary and idealistic. The Ayrshire 
 peasantry are sketched as they really appeared 
 on an occasion of old-time merriment such as 
 Halloween, that festival of pagan rites which 
 celebrated the last night of the harvest season. 
 38
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 Burns exposes the credulity and superstition 
 of the rustics with kindly strokes of humour, 
 but in the midst of broad farce he intersperses 
 delightful sketches of inanimate Nature without 
 the slightest trace of incongruity. Thus he 
 makes one of the characters, " wanton widow 
 Leezie," steal from the house wherein sat the 
 merry party and go out — braving witches and 
 warlocks all the while — to a small stream, 
 there to perform a charm, namely, " to dip 
 her left sark-sleeve in." The stream is thus 
 described : 
 
 Whyles owre a linn the burnie plays, 
 
 As thro' the glen it wimpl't ; 
 Whyles round a rocky scar it strays ; 
 
 Whyles in a wiel it dimpl't ; 
 Whyles glitter 'd to the nightly rays, 
 
 Wi' bickerin*, dancin* dazzle ; 
 Whyles cookit underneath the braes. 
 
 Below the spreading hazel. 
 Unseen that night. 
 
 But Lizzie's nerves were all on edge, and in 
 the very next stanza — the poet shall tell it : 
 
 Amang the brachens on the brae, 
 
 Between her an' the moon, 
 The Deil, or else an outler quey, 
 
 Gat up an' gae a croon : 
 Poor Leezie 's heart maist lap the hool ; 
 
 Near lav 'rock height she jumpit. 
 But mist a fit, an' in the pool 
 
 Out-owre the lugs she plumpit, 
 Wi' a plunge that night. 
 
 39
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 In " Poor Mailie's Elegy " Burns had re- 
 garded the beasts of the field as having feelings 
 akin to those of human beings and as having 
 a certain claim upon man's humanity. He now 
 gave more powerful expression to the universal 
 brotherhood of man with Nature in a poem 
 which, apart altogether from the sentiment, 
 must be reckoned as a piece of consummate 
 craftsmanship. One day, when ploughing. Burns 
 turned up the nest of a field-mouse. The little 
 animal went scurrying away in fright, and a 
 serving-man, named Blane, seized a stick to 
 kill it. Burns stopped him, saying : ** He's 
 done ye no harm." In the evening Burns 
 composed the following poem and, after reading 
 it to Blane, said, ** What do ye think o' the 
 mouse now ? " 
 
 TO A MOUSE 
 
 ON TURNING HER UP IN HER NEST WITH THE 
 PLOUGH, NOVEMBER 1785 
 
 Wee, sleekit, cow'rin', tim'rous beastie, 
 
 what a panic's in thy breastie ! 
 Thou need na start awa sae hasty, 
 
 Wi' bickering brattle ! 
 
 1 wad be laith to rin an' chase thee 
 
 Wi' murd'ring pattle ! 
 
 I'm truly sorry man's dominion 
 Has broken Nature's social union. 
 An' justifies that ill opinion 
 
 Which makes thee startle 
 At me, thy poor earth-born companion, 
 
 An' fellow-mortal ! 
 40
 
 BURNS <^ HIS POETRY 
 
 I doubt na, whiles, but thou may thieve ; 
 What then ? poor beastie, thou maun hve ! 
 A daimen icker in a thrave 
 
 'S a sma' request : 
 I'll get a blessin' wi' the lave, 
 
 And never miss't ! 
 
 Thy wee bit housie, too, in ruin ! 
 Its silly wa's the win's are strewin' : 
 And naething, now, to big a new ane, 
 
 O' foggage green ! 
 An' bleak December's winds ensuin' 
 
 Baith snell an' keen ! 
 
 Thou saw the fields laid bare an' waste 
 An' weary winter comin' fast, 
 An' cozie here, beneath the blast. 
 
 Thou thought to dwell, 
 Till, crash ! the cruel coulter past 
 
 Out thro' thy cell. 
 
 That wee bit heap o' leaves an' stibble 
 Has cost thee mony a weary nibble ! 
 Now thou's turn'd out, for a' thy trouble. 
 
 But house or hald. 
 To thole the winter's sleety dribble 
 
 An' cranreuch cauld ! 
 
 But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane 
 In proving foresight may be vain : 
 The best laid schemes o' mice an' men 
 
 Gang aft a-gley. 
 An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain, 
 
 For promised joy. 
 
 Still thou art blest, compared wi' me ! 
 The present only toucheth thee : 
 
 41
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 But, Och I I backward cast my e'e 
 On prospects drear ! 
 
 An' forward, tho' I canna see, 
 I guess an ' fear ! 
 
 A year later, in April 1786, Burns was turn- 
 ing over a field with the plough and the plough- 
 share cut through a mountain daisy. Burns at 
 once immortalised it. Years afterwards Words- 
 worth made a pilgrimage to Mossgiel and 
 bethought him of the "wee, modest, crimson- 
 tipped flower." He thus records his visit : 
 
 " There," said the stripling, pointing with much pride 
 Towards a low roof, with green trees half -concealed, 
 " Is Mossgiel farm ; and that's the very field 
 Where Burns plough 'd up the Daisy." Far and wide 
 A plain below stretched seaward, while, descried 
 Above sea-clouds, the peaks of Arran rose ; 
 And by that simple notice, the repose 
 Of earth, sky, sea, and air was vivified. 
 Beneath the random field of clod or stone. 
 Myriads of daisies have shone forth in flower 
 Near the lark's nest, and in their natural hour 
 Have passed away : less happy than the one 
 That, by the unwilling ploughshare, died to prove 
 The tender charm of poetry and love. 
 
 But it is doubtful if the poem about the daisy 
 really equals " To a Mouse" in natural sim- 
 plicity. The moralising bias of the age is found 
 in both poems: but it is more evident in the later 
 "To a Daisy," where the lesson is conveyed 
 in five stanzas of pure English in a style remi- 
 niscent of Gray. 
 42
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 TO A MOUNTAIN DAISY 
 
 ON TURNING ONE DOWN WITH THE PLOUGH 
 IN APRIL 1786 
 
 Wee, modest, crimson-tipped flower, 
 Thou's met me in an evil hour ; 
 For I maun crush amang the stoure 
 
 Thy slender stem ; 
 To spare thee now is past my power. 
 
 Thou bonnie gem. 
 
 Alas ! it's no thy neebor sweet, 
 The bonnie lark, companion meet. 
 Bending thee 'mang the dewy weet, 
 
 Wi' spreckled breast ! 
 When upward-springing, blithe, to greet 
 
 The purpling east. 
 
 Cauld blew the bitter biting north 
 Upon thy early, humble birth ; 
 Yet cheerfully thou glinted forth 
 
 Amid the storm, 
 Scarce reared above the parent earth 
 
 Thy tender form. 
 
 The flaunting flowers our gardens yield. 
 High shelt'ring woods and wa's maun shield ; 
 But thou beneath the random bield 
 
 O' clod or stane, 
 Adorns the histie stibble-field, 
 
 Unseen, alane. 
 
 There, in thy scanty mantle clad. 
 Thy snawy bosom sunward spread, 
 Thou lifts thy unassuming head 
 
 In humble guise ; 
 But now the share uptears thy bed. 
 
 And low thou lies ! 
 
 43
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 Such is the fate of artless maid, 
 Sweet flow 'ret of the rural shade ! 
 By love's simplicity betrayed, 
 
 And guileless trust. 
 Till she, like thee, all soiled, is laid 
 
 Low i' the dust. 
 
 Such is the fate of simple Bard, 
 
 On Life's rough ocean luckless starred ! 
 
 Unskilful he to note the card 
 
 Of prudent lore. 
 Till billows rage, and gales blow hard. 
 
 And whelm him o'er ! 
 
 Such fate to suffering Worth is given, 
 Who long with wants and woes has striven, 
 By human pride or cunning driven 
 
 To mis'ry's brink, 
 Till wrenched of every stay but Heaven, 
 
 He, ruined, sink ! 
 
 Ev'n thou who mourn 'st the Daisy's fate, 
 That fate is thine— no distant date ; 
 Stern Ruin's ploughshare drives, elate. 
 
 Full on thy bloom, 
 Till crushed beneath the furrow's weight. 
 
 Shall be thy doom ! 
 
 The same broad humanity and kindliness is 
 seen in "The Auld Farmer's New-Year Morn- 
 ing Salutation to his Auld Mare Maggie." 
 This poem smacks of the soil and shows clearly 
 how Burns 's genius was moulded and coloured 
 by the agricultural life which he led. If it is 
 true that, as Shakespeare avers, the hand of 
 44
 
 BURNS <^ HIS POETRY 
 
 little employment hath the daintier sense, then 
 an exception must be made in the case of the 
 Ayrshire poet. No amount of toil, no amount 
 of familiarity with the grosser aspects of life, 
 hardened or made callous this peasant's heart. 
 " In this homely but most kindly humorous 
 poem," says Professor Shairp, " you have the 
 whole toiling life of a ploughman and his horse, 
 done off in two or three touches ; and the 
 elements of what may seem a commonplace, 
 but was to Burns a most vivid experience, are 
 made to live for ever. For a piece of good 
 graphic Scotch, see how he describes the sturdy 
 old mare in the plough setting her face to the 
 furzy braes." Here is the passage : 
 
 Thou was a noble fittie-lan', 
 
 As e'er in tug or tow was drawn ! 
 
 Aft thee an' I, in aught hours gaun, 
 
 In guid March-weather, 
 Hae turn'd sax rood beside our han', 
 
 For days thegither. 
 
 Thou never braing't, an' fetch't, an' fliskit, 
 But thy auld tail thou wad hae whiskit. 
 An' spread abreed thy weel-fill'd briskit, 
 
 Wi' pith an' pow'r, 
 Till sprittie knowes wad rair't and riskit, 
 
 An' slypet owre. 
 
 And now it is time for the poet by the magic 
 of his art to cast a halo over the homes of the 
 people he loved. Amongst the peasantry of 
 Scotland it was then the habit to hold family 
 
 45
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 worship every night. After the death of his 
 father the poet became head of the family at 
 Mossgiel and performed, with high seriousness, 
 the duty of conducting the cottage worship. 
 Nothing delighted him more than to hear a 
 decent pious man, the head of a household, 
 introducing family worship with the solemn 
 words, ** Let us worship God." This phrase 
 was as a spark to the tinder of his imagina- 
 tion, and forms the text of his grand — though 
 disguised — homily, " The Cotter's Saturday 
 Night." 
 
 THE COTTER'S SATURDAY NIGHT 
 
 November chill blaws loud wi' angry sugh ; 
 The shortening winter-day is near a close ; 
 The miry beasts retreating frae the pleugh ; 
 The blackening trains o' craws to their repose : 
 The toil-worn Cotter frae his labour goes, 
 This night his weekly moil is at an end, 
 Collects his spades, his mattocks, and his hoes. 
 Hoping the morn in ease and rest to spend, 
 And weary, o'er the moor, his course does hameward 
 bend. 
 
 At length his lonely cot appears in view, 
 Beneath the shelter of an aged tree ; 
 The expectant wee-things, toddlin', stacher through 
 To meet their Dad, wi' flichterin' noise an' glee. 
 His wee bit ingle, blinking bonnily, 
 His clean hearthstane, his thriftie wifie's smile, 
 The lisping infant prattling on his knee, 
 Does a' his weary carking cares beguile. 
 And mak^s him quite forget his labour and his toil. 
 
 4^
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 Belyve the elder bairns come drapping in, 
 At service out, amang the farmers roun', 
 Some ca' the pleugh, some herd, some tentie rin 
 A cannie errand to a neebor town : 
 Their eldest hope, their Jenny, woman grown, 
 In youthfu' bloom, love sparkling in her e'e, 
 Comes hame, perhaps, to shew a braw new gown, 
 Or deposite her sair-won penny-fee. 
 To help her parents dear, if they in hardship be. 
 
 Wi' joy unfeigned brothers and sisters meet, 
 An' each for other's weelfare kindly spiers : 
 The social hours, swift-winged, unnoticed fleet ; 
 Each tells the uncos that he sees or hears : 
 The parents, partial, eye their hopeful years ; 
 Anticipation forward points the view. 
 The mother, wi' her needle an' her shears. 
 Gars auld claes look amaist as weel's the new ; 
 The father mixes a' wi' admonition due. 
 
 Their master's an' their mistress's command. 
 The younkers a' are warned to obey ; 
 An' mind their labours wi' an eydent hand, 
 An' ne'er, though out o' sight, to jauk or play : 
 " An' O ! be sure to fear the Lord alway ! 
 An' mind your duty duly, morn an' night ! 
 Lest in temptation's path ye gang astray. 
 Implore His counsel and assisting might : 
 They never sought in vain that sought the Lord 
 aright! " 
 
 But hark ! a rap comes gently to the door ; 
 Jenny, wha kens the meaning o' the same. 
 Tells how a neebor lad cam' o'er the moor. 
 To do some errands, and convoy her hame. 
 
 47
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 The wily mother sees the conscious flame 
 Sparkle in Jenny's e'e, and flush her cheek ; 
 With heart-struck anxious care, inquires his name, 
 While Jenny hafflins is afraid to speak : 
 Weel pleased the mother hears it's nae wild, worthless 
 rake. 
 
 Wi' kindly welcome Jenny brings him ben, 
 A strappan youth ; he takes the mother's eye ; 
 Blithe Jenny sees the visit's no ill ta'en ; 
 The father cracks of horses, pleughs, and kye : 
 The youngster's artless heart o'erflows wi' joy. 
 But blate and laithfu', scarce can weel behave ; 
 The mother, wi' a woman's wiles, can spy 
 What makes the youth sae bashfu' an' sae grave ; 
 Weel pleased to think her bairn's respected like the 
 lave. 
 
 O happy love ! where love like this is found ! 
 heartfelt raptures ! bliss beyond compare ! 
 I've paced much this weary, mortal round. 
 And sage experience bids me this declare— 
 " If Heaven a draught of heavenly pleasure spare, 
 One cordial in this melancholy vale, 
 'Tis when a youthful, loving, modest pair, 
 In other's arms, breathe out the tender tale, 
 Beneath the milk-white thorn that scents the evening 
 gale." 
 
 Is there, in human form, that bears a heart— 
 A wretch ! a villain ! lost to love and truth ! 
 That can, with studied, sly, ensnaring art. 
 Betray sweet Jenny's unsuspecting youth ? 
 Curse on his perjured arts ! dissembling, smooth \ 
 Are honour, virtue, conscience, all exiled ? 
 Is there no pity, no relenting ruth, 
 43
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 Points to the parents fondling o'er their child ? 
 Then paints the ruined maid, and their distraction wild ? 
 
 But now the supper crowns their simple board, 
 The halesome parritch, chief o' Scotia's food : 
 The soupe their only Hawkie does afford, 
 That 'yont the hallan snugly chows her cood : 
 The dame brings forth in complimental mood, 
 To grace the lad, her weel-hained kebbuck, fell ; 
 An' aft he's prest, an' aft he ca's it guid ; 
 The frugal wifie, garrulous, will tell. 
 How 'twas a towmond auld, sin' lint was i' the bell. 
 
 The cheerfu' supper done, wi' serious face, 
 They, round the ingle, form a circle wide ; 
 The sire turns o'er, wi' patriarchal grace. 
 The big ha' Bible, ance his father's pride : 
 His bonnet rev'rently is laid aside. 
 His lyart haffets wearing thin an' bare ; 
 Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide, 
 He wales a portion with judicious care ; 
 And " Let us worship God 1 " he says, with solemn air. 
 
 They chant their artless notes in simple guise ; 
 They tune their hearts, by far the noblest aim : 
 Perhaps " Dundee's " wild warbling measures rise, 
 Or plaintive " Martyrs," worthy of the name : 
 Or noble " Elgin " beets the heavenward flame, 
 The sweetest far of Scotia's holy lays : 
 Compared with these, Italian trills are tame ; 
 The tickled ears no heartfelt raptures raise ; 
 Nae unison hae they, with our Creator's praise. 
 
 The priest-like father reads the sacred page. 
 How Abram was the friend of God on high ; 
 Or, Moses bade eternal warfare wage 
 With Amalek's ungracious progeny ; 
 
 D 49
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 Or how the royal bard did groaning He 
 Beneath the stroke of Heaven's avenging ire ; 
 Or, Job's pathetic plaint, and wailing cry ; 
 Or rapt Isaiah's wild, seraphic fire ; 
 Or other holy Seers that tune the sacred lyre. 
 
 Perhaps the Christian volume is the theme, 
 How guiltless blood for guilty man was shed ; 
 How He, who bore in Heaven the second name, 
 Had not on earth whereon to lay His head : 
 How His first followers and servants sped ; 
 The precepts sage they wrote to many a land : 
 How he, who lone in Patmos banished, 
 Saw in the sun a mighty angel stand ; 
 And heard great Bab'lon's doom pronounced by 
 Heaven's command. 
 
 Then kneeling down, to Heaven's Eternal King, 
 The saint, the father, and the husband prays : 
 Hope " springs exulting on triumphant wing," 
 That thus they all shall meet in future days : 
 There, ever bask in uncreated rays. 
 No more to sigh, or shed the bitter tear, 
 Together hymning their Creator's praise, 
 In such society, yet still more dear ; 
 While circling Time moves round in an eternal sphere. 
 
 Compared with this, how poor ReHgion's pride, 
 
 In all the pomp of method, and of art, 
 
 When men display to congregations wide, 
 
 Devotion's every grace, except the heart ! 
 
 The Power, incensed, the pageant will desert, 
 
 The pompous strain, the sacerdotal stole ; 
 
 But haply, in some cottage far apart, 
 
 May hear, well pleased, the language of the soul ; 
 
 And in His Book of Life the inmates poor enrol. 
 
 50
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 Then homeward all take off their several way ; 
 The youngling cottagers retire to rest : 
 The parent pair their secret homage pay, 
 And proffer up to Heaven the warm request 
 That He who stills the raven's clamorous nest, 
 And decks the lily fair in flowery pride, 
 Would, in the way His wisdom sees the best, 
 For them and for their little ones provide ; 
 But chiefly, in their hearts with grace divine preside. 
 
 From scenes like these, old Scotia's grandeur springs, 
 That makes her loved at home, revered abroad : 
 Princes and lords are but the breath of kings, 
 " An honest man's the noblest work of God " : 
 And certes, in fair virtue's heavenly road, 
 The cottage leaves the palace far behind ; 
 What is a lordling's pomp ? a cumbrous load. 
 Disguising oft the wretch of human kind. 
 Studied in arts of Hell, in wickedness refined ! 
 
 O Scotia ! my dear, my native soil ! 
 For whom my warmest wish to Heaven is sent ! 
 Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil 
 Be blest with health, and peace, and sweet content ! 
 And, O ! may Heaven their simple lives prevent 
 From Luxury's contagion, weak and vile ! 
 Then, howe'er crowns and coronets be rent, 
 A virtuous populace may rise the while. 
 And stand a wall of fire around their much-loved Isle. 
 
 O Thou ! who poured the patriotic tide 
 
 That streamed through Wallace's undaunted heart. 
 
 Who dared to nobly stem tyrannic pride. 
 
 Or nobly die, the second glorious part, 
 
 (The patriot's God, peculiarly Thou art, 
 
 SI
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 His friend, inspirer, guardian, and reward !) 
 O never, never, Scotia's realm desert ; 
 But still the patriot, and the patriot bard, 
 In bright succession raise, her ornament and guard ! 
 
 ** The Cotter's Saturday Night " is the most 
 popular of Burns 's longer poems. It has been 
 translated into twelve languages and has evoked 
 widespread admiration. The topic is happily 
 chosen and calculated to arouse universal 
 sympathy. Deft touches of sly humour and of 
 simple realism differentiate this poem from those 
 of a frankly evangelical type. The portrait of 
 William Burnes, the priest-like father — "his 
 lyart haffets wearing thin an' bare" — gives it 
 an autobiographic and personal interest. It is a 
 touching sketch of pure family life. It is in 
 itself ennobling. The parts that affect most 
 are the faithful descriptions of what were then 
 regarded as the most ordinary conventions. In 
 this connection a good story is related. Mrs. 
 Dunlop, the friend and correspondent of the 
 poet, gave the poem to her housekeeper to 
 read ; the servant in returning it paid the 
 poetry a high tribute, all unconscious to herself : 
 ** Gentlemen and leddies may think muckle o' 
 this ; but for me it's naething but what I saw 
 i' my faither's hoose every day, an' I dinna see 
 hoo he could hae tel't it ony ither way." 
 
 But in spite of all these charms the poem 
 does not reach Burns's height of art. Its plan 
 was taken from Fergusson's * * Farmer's Ingle ' ' ; 
 but the stanza followed the manner of Shenstone, 
 for Burns as yet was unacquainted with Spenser. 
 
 52
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 This difficult stanza was not one to which the 
 poet had habituated himself. The poem is 
 unequal : the first half written in Scotch and 
 the second half written in English have 
 each been claimed as superior to the other by 
 different schools of critics. Burns did not rid 
 himself entirely of the pastoral convention. 
 The homes of the Scottish peasantry were not 
 and are not idyllic. The realism of the first half 
 of the poem is glossed over with that senti- 
 mentality so characteristic of the eighteenth 
 century, and in the last stanzas the poet merges 
 into an obtrusive didacticism. Such are the 
 objections of the critics ; but " Burns's genius," 
 says Lockhart, '* would suffer more in estima- 
 tion by being contemplated in the absence of 
 this poem than of any other single poem he 
 has left us." Who would wish it otherwise ? 
 
 When Burns wrote "The Cotter's Saturday 
 Night " he undoubtedly sketched the scene 
 from life. The simple fireside piety of the home 
 delighted him, but none knew better than he 
 that this was but one aspect of the religious life 
 of the peasantry. In the Kirk of Scotland there 
 was much sectarianism, and the public brawling 
 contrasted strangely with the peaceful picture 
 of family worship. As Crabbe provided the 
 sordid picture to be placed alongside Goldsmith's 
 " Deserted Village," so Burns in his satires pro- 
 vided several companion pieces to be read as 
 corrective to " The Saturday Night." His 
 greatest satires are levelled at that congeries 
 of conflicting interests which in his time con- 
 
 53
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 stituted the Church. Burns was early suspected 
 of heretical principles. He lived in a time of 
 great ecclesiastical unrest, both within and 
 without the Church. He had read the polemics 
 of religion, and in the churchyard debates 
 which, with drinking at the inn, then formed 
 the chief means of whiling away the time 
 between sermons on a Sunday, he had been 
 distinguished for his unorthodox views. Within 
 the Church two opposing schools had arisen : one, 
 termed the * ' Auld Lights, ' ' steadfastly resisted 
 any alteration in the extreme doctrine of Cal- 
 vinism ; the other, termed the " New Lights," 
 favoured a relaxation of the ecclesiastical bonds 
 and the abolition of clerical subscription to the 
 Confession of Faith. Both Auld Lights and 
 New Lights were too dogmatic for Burns, but 
 the narrow intolerance of Old-Lightism was 
 more repellent : 
 
 But I gae mad at their grimaces. 
 Their sighin', can tin' grace-proud faces. 
 Their three-mile prayers, an' hauf-mile graces, 
 
 Their raxin conscience, 
 Whase greed, revenge, an' pride disgraces 
 
 Waur nor their nonsense. 
 
 An opportunity of satirising the Auld Lights 
 soon occurred. Two champions of the strict 
 school had fallen out about a question of parish 
 boundaries, and when the case was being 
 debated the two fiery divines abused each other 
 in the open court, to the great amusement of 
 the ungodly. Burns at once wrote "The Twa 
 54
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 Herds," by some considered his most powerful 
 satire, in which he admonished with mock 
 seriousness the two disputants. The poem had 
 an extensive circulation in manuscript in Ayr- 
 shire, and at the time met with a roar of applause, 
 but its interest for the general reader has perished 
 with the quarrels which called it forth. 
 
 In " The Twa Herds " Burns really satirised 
 a party : in ** Holy Willie's Prayer " he scari- 
 fied an elder associated with it. The Kirk 
 possessed and exercised considerable disci- 
 plinary powers, and to resist the Kirk meant 
 the incurring not only of the usual legal punish- 
 ments, but of social boycott likewise. Mr. Gavin 
 Hamilton, the landlord of Mossgiel, had been 
 refused baptism for his child because he had 
 gone on a journey on a certain Sunday in spite 
 of the minister's warning, and, more heinous 
 still, on another Sunday he had ordered some 
 potatoes to be dug for the family dinner ! 
 Hamilton fought the case in the Church courts 
 and won it, chiefly through the eloquence of a 
 lawyer friend, Robert Aiken of Ayr. One of the 
 leaders in the persecution was an elder named 
 William Fisher, and the petty malice shown by 
 this man fired Burns to satirise him in " Holy 
 Willie's Prayer." The poet pretends to over- 
 hear Holy Willie at his devotions calling down 
 vengeance on all his enemies. The two stanzas 
 immediately referring to Hamilton are the 
 mildest parts of this scathing attack : 
 
 Lord, mind Gaw'n Hamilton's deserts. 
 He drinks an' swears, an' plays at cartes, 
 
 55
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 Yet has sae monie takin' arts, 
 
 Wi' grit an' sma', 
 Frae God's ain priest the people's hearts 
 
 He steals awa'. 
 
 An' whan we chasten 'd him therefore, 
 Thou kens how he bred sic a splore 
 As set the world in a roar 
 
 O' laughin' at us ; 
 Curse thou his basket and his store, 
 
 Kail and potatoes. 
 
 These satires, although aimed at the strictly 
 orthodox school, do not necessarily imply that 
 Burns was a New Light. It is true that his 
 friends belonged to the latter party, but there 
 is evidence that while Burns was willing to 
 break a spear on behalf of his friends, his real 
 position was that of Mercutio — "a plague on 
 both your houses." In one of his letters he 
 maintained that a sectarian turn of mind had 
 always a tendency to narrow and illiberalise the 
 heart, and in a "Postscript" to "The Epistle 
 to William Simson " he satirised both parties 
 impartially. The epistle itself is interesting as 
 showing that Burns was now deliberately setting 
 himself to emulate his famous predecessors : 
 
 My senses wad be in a creel, 
 Should I but dare a hope to speel, 
 Wi' Allan, or wi' Gilbertfield, 
 
 The braes o' fame ; 
 Or Fergusson, the writer-chiel, 
 
 A deathless name. 
 • # * * * 
 
 56
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 Ramsay an' famous Fergusson 
 Gied Forth an' Tay a lift aboon : 
 Yarrow and Tweed, to mony a tune, 
 
 Owre Scotland rings 
 While Irwin, Lugar, Ayr, an' Doon 
 
 Naebody sings. 
 ***** 
 We'll sing auld Coila's plains an' fells, 
 Her moors red-brown wi' heather bells, 
 Her banks an' braes, her dens an' dells, 
 
 Where glorious Wallace 
 Aft bure the gree, as story tells, 
 
 Frae Southron billies. 
 
 At Wallace' name, what Scottish blood 
 But boils up in a spring-tide flood ? 
 Oft have our fearless fathers strode 
 
 By Wallace' side, 
 Still pressing onward, red-wat-shod. 
 
 Or glorious dy'd ! 
 
 In 1785 Burns addressed a general satire to 
 the " unco guid," either New or Old, to which- 
 ever denomination they may have belonged. 
 The more general the satire the less venomous 
 it is bound to be ; but as this satire depends, for 
 its force, less than others upon the exigencies 
 of the moment, it is here printed in full. The 
 second last stanza is often quoted : 
 
 TO THE UNCO GUID 
 
 O, ye wha are sae guid yoursel', 
 
 Sae pious and sae holy, 
 Ye've nought to do but mark and tell 
 
 Your neebours' faults and folly ; 
 
 57
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 Whase life is like a weel-gaun mill, 
 
 Supplied wi' store o' water, 
 The heapet happer's ebbing still, 
 
 And still the clap plays clatter. 
 
 Hear me, ye venerable core, 
 
 As counsel for poor mortals, 
 That frequent pass douce Wisdom's door 
 
 For glaikit Folly's portals ; 
 I, for their thoughtless, careless sakes 
 
 Would here propone defences. 
 Their donsie tricks, their black mistakes, 
 
 Their failings and mischances. 
 
 Ye see your state wi' theirs compared, 
 
 And shudder at the niff er, 
 But cast a moment's fair regard, 
 
 What mak's the mighty differ ? 
 Discount what scant occasion gave 
 
 That purity ye pride in. 
 And (what's aft mair than a' the lave) 
 
 Your better art o' hiding. 
 
 Think, when your castigated pulse 
 
 Gi'es now and then a wallop. 
 What ragings must his veins convulse. 
 
 That still eternal gallop ! 
 Wi* wind and tide fair i' your tail. 
 
 Right on ye scud your sea-way ; 
 But in the teeth o' baith to sail, 
 
 It mak's an unco leeway. 
 
 See Social Life and Glee sit down. 
 
 All joyous and unthinking, 
 Till, quite transmugrified, they're grown 
 
 Debauchery and Drinking : 
 
 58
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 O, would they stay to calculate 
 
 Th' eternal consequences ; 
 Or — your more dreaded hell to state, — 
 
 Damnation of expenses 1 
 
 Ye high, exalted, virtuous dames, 
 
 Tied up in godly laces, 
 Before ye gi'e poor Frailty names, 
 
 Suppose a change o' cases ; 
 A dear-loved lad, convenience snug, 
 
 A treacherous inclination — 
 But, let me whisper i' your lug, 
 
 Ye're aiblins nae temptation. 
 
 Then gently scan your brother man. 
 
 Still gentler sister woman ; 
 Though they may gang a kennin wrang. 
 
 To step aside is human : 
 One point must still be greatly dark. 
 
 The moving why they do it ; 
 And just as lamely can ye mark 
 
 How far, perhaps, they rue it. 
 
 Who made the heart, 'tis He alone 
 
 Decidedly can try us. 
 He knows each chord — its various tone. 
 
 Each spring — its various bias : 
 Then at the balance let's be mute. 
 
 We never can adjust it ; 
 What's done we partly may compute, 
 
 But know not what's resisted. 
 
 The greatest of all Burns's satires on religion 
 is "The Holy Fair." At the time of " the Sacra- 
 ment ' ' it was the custom for all the people of the 
 
 59
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 parish to assemble at or near the kirk to hold 
 a ** preaching," or open-air conventicle. Several 
 clergymen assisted at these services, and tem- 
 porary platforms were often erected in the 
 Kirkyard. These ceremonies might last a week, 
 and the people brought provisions with them 
 and often camped out in the fields. The preach- 
 ings were generally arranged at different times 
 for neighbouring parishes, so that there was 
 often an influx of strangers. Such solemn scenes 
 in course of time became occasions of drunken 
 rout and revelry, and degenerated into a perfect 
 carnival of licence. Drunk with enthusiasm, 
 drunk with *' nappy," fanatically drunk, rival 
 factions debated, argued, wrangled, and even 
 came to blows. Others, more ungodly, went to 
 pray but remained to jest, and with drink and 
 song and merry dance gave little heed to the 
 morrow. It is now difficult to conceive of such 
 a travesty of religion : the pencil of a Hogarth 
 or a Wilkie could scarcely portray the scene. 
 But with the eye of an artist Burns saw what 
 was capable of being reproduced, and, with 
 implacable, indignant scorn, painted in faithful 
 colours the disgraceful orgies of the holy fair. 
 It was a sharp lesson to clergy and to people 
 alike, and it did much to purify religious life. 
 
 It is impossible to mention in this little book 
 even a tithe of the poems which Burns threw off 
 with seeming careless ease in the two years 
 ( 1 784-1 786) now under review. The caustic 
 wit of the great social satire " The Twa Dogs," 
 the naive drollery of the personal satire " Death 
 60
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 and Dr. Hornbook," the playful wisdom of the 
 admirable " To a Louse," the vivid description 
 in the reckless " Scotch Drink," the grand 
 prophetic utterance in " The Vision," the 
 austere pessimism of '* Man was made to 
 mourn," the joy of life in " The Jolly Beggars," 
 can only be realised by a perusal of the poems 
 themselves. 
 
 ** The Jolly Beggars " is a musical drama 
 of which Burns thought so little that he never 
 published it, and indeed he seems to have for- 
 gotten about it altogether. It was published 
 after the death of the poet. Nevertheless it 
 disputes with " The Holy Fair " and ** Tam o' 
 Shanter " the honour of being Burns's greatest 
 work. The inception of the poem was similar 
 to that of nearly all his other productions. 
 Happening to be passing an alehouse of the 
 lowest class, kept by one Poosie Nansie, he 
 heard the noise of revelry. Accompanied by a 
 friend, he entered and found an assembly of 
 vagrants, each contributing something charac- 
 teristic to the performance. Such a scene filled 
 Burns with delight, and a few days afterwards 
 he wrote " The Jolly Beggars," with songs for 
 each of the characters he had seen. Matthew 
 Arnold says: "'The Jolly Beggars' has a 
 breadth, truth, and power which make the 
 famous scene in Auerbach's cellar, of Goethe's 
 * Faust,' seem artificial and tame beside it, 
 and which are only matched by Shakespeare 
 and Aristophanes." 
 
 During all this great period of productivity 
 
 6i
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 the worldly affairs of Burns had been going ill. 
 Mossgiel was a failure and the poet had no 
 prospects. Jean Armour's father, alarmed at 
 the influence which Burns possessed with his 
 daughter, had her removed to Paisley, but not 
 before Burns and she had been privately married 
 according to the civil, but not the ecclesiastical, 
 law. Old Armour, on this fact coming to his 
 ears, flew into a rage and mutilated the docu- 
 ment in which Burns had acknowledged Jean 
 as his wife, and thus destroyed the legal evidence. 
 Burns made many humble advances, and even 
 offered to work as a common labourer for Jean's 
 support, but all in vain. The Mauchline mason 
 on no account would have the future national 
 poet as his son-in-law. He actually set the 
 law in motion against him, and Burns, afraid 
 of imprisonment, left Mossgiel for a time and 
 went into hiding. He secured a situation as a 
 book-keeper on a plantation in Jamaica and 
 prepared to leave Scotland, but lack of funds 
 caused some months' delay. Some of his friends 
 suggested the publication of his poems in order 
 to raise his passage-money. Overtures were 
 therefore made, and a printer in Kilmarnock, 
 one John Wilson, was found willing to under- 
 take the printing if the price of the paper was 
 guaranteed. But alas ! even for this the poet 
 was unable to provide the few necessary pounds. 
 Ultimately Gavin Hamilton suggested that a 
 sufficient number of subscribers might be 
 found amongst the poet's friends to make failure 
 impossible and profit not too remotely prob- 
 62
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 lematical. Many of the Ayrshire gentry rose 
 to the occasion, particularly the small landed 
 proprietors, men who were not far removed from 
 the poet in social station and with whom he could 
 meet on equal ground. A sufficient guarantee 
 was soon obtained, and so it came that during 
 June and July the poems constituting the first, 
 or Kilmarnock, edition were passing through 
 the press. With the exception of the most 
 outrageous of the satires, most of the poems 
 already mentioned were now printed, and in 
 addition Burns wrote several pieces expressly 
 for the volume. 
 
 Meanwhile Jean had returned from Paisley, 
 and the poet, swallowing his pride, ventured 
 to call at her house again. He was turned 
 from the door, and in high dudgeon vowed 
 never again to approach the Armours. He 
 determined to look out for another wife. 
 With great dispatch he selected one Mary 
 Campbell, a nursemaid in the service of 
 his friend Gavin Hamilton, and the pair 
 agreed to marry. The whole circumstances 
 of this love affair are obscure. Cromek, 
 one of the earliest biographers of the poet, 
 describes in great detail how the lovers stood 
 by the side of a stream, laved their hands in 
 the water, and, holding a Bible between them, 
 promised to be faithful for ever. Mary presented 
 him with a small plain Bible, while he on his 
 part gave her one, in two volumes. These latter 
 are now in the museum at Alloway. The date 
 of this meeting is given, on the poet's own 
 
 63
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 authority, as the second Sunday in May 1786. 
 Mary set out for her home in Greenock to 
 arrange matters among her friends for the 
 approaching ceremony. Burns never saw her 
 again. She died in October 1786. The poet 
 wrote several poems to her : " Will ye go to 
 the Indies, my Mary," " Prayer for Mary," 
 " My Highland Lassie, O " ; and some years 
 later the memory of his lost love came to him, 
 and inspired him to write a wonderful lyric in 
 her honour. The episode of Highland Mary 
 is one of the most romantic and strange in 
 the chequered career of Burns. 
 
 All this time the poet was in an unhappy 
 frame of mind. He seemed to rush from one 
 misfortune to the other. His mental state may 
 be judged from the numerous sad pieces which 
 he now composed, particularly his " Farewell to 
 the Banks of Ayr " and his ** Bard's Epitaph." 
 
 FAREWELL TO THE BANKS OF AYR 
 
 The gloomy night is gath'ring fast, 
 Loud roars the wild inconstant blast. 
 Yon murky cloud is filled with rain, 
 I see it driving o'er the plain ; 
 The hunter now has left the moor, 
 The scattered coveys meet secure, 
 While here I wander, prest with care, 
 Along the lonely banks of Ayr. 
 
 The Autumn mourns her rip'ning corn 
 By early winter's ravage torn ; 
 Across her placid, azure sky. 
 She sees the scowling tempest fly : 
 64
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 Chill runs my blood to hear it rave ; 
 I think upon the stormy wave, 
 Where many a danger I must dare, 
 Far from the bonnie banks of Ayr. 
 
 'Tis not the surging billows' roar, 
 'Tis not that fatal, deadly shore ; 
 Tho' death in ev'ry shape appear. 
 The wretched have no more to fear : 
 But round my heart the ties are bound, 
 That heart transpierc'd with many a wound : 
 These bleed afresh, those ties I tear, 
 To leave the bonnie banks of Ayr. 
 
 Farewell, old Coila's hills and dales. 
 Her heathy moors and winding vales ; 
 The scenes where wretched fancy roves. 
 Pursuing past, unhappy loves ! 
 Farewell my friends ! Farewell my foes I 
 My peace with these, my love with those — 
 The bursting tears my heart declare, 
 Farewell; my bonnie banks of Ayr. 
 
 A BARD'S EPITAPH 
 
 Is there a whim-inspired fool, 
 
 Owre fast for thought, owre hot for rule, 
 
 Owre blate to seek, owre proud to snool ? 
 
 Let him draw near ; 
 And owre this grassy heap sing dool. 
 
 And drap a tear. 
 
 Is there a Bard of rustic song 
 
 Who, noteless, steals the crowds among, 
 
 That weekly this area throng ? 
 
 0, pass not by ! 
 But, with a frater-feeling strong. 
 
 Here, heave a sigh. 
 
 E 65
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 Is there a man, whose judgment clear 
 Can others teach the course to steer, 
 Yet runs, himself, life's mad career 
 
 Wild as the wave ? 
 Here pause — and, through the starting tear, 
 
 Survey this grave. 
 
 The poor inhabitant below 
 
 Was quick to learn, and wise to know. 
 
 And keenly felt the friendly glow 
 
 And softer flame ; 
 But thoughtless follies laid him low, 
 
 And stained his name ! 
 
 Reader, attend ! Whether thy soul 
 Soars Fancy's flights beyond the pole, 
 Or darkling grubs this earthly hole 
 
 In low pursuit ; 
 Know, prudent, cautious self-control 
 
 Is wisdom's root. 
 
 The bard is, of course. Burns himself ; and, 
 as Wordsworth has pointed out, the epitaph 
 *' is a sincere and solemn avowal ; a public 
 declaration from his own will ; a confession 
 at once devout, poetical, human ; a history 
 in the shape of a prophecy." The cry for sym- 
 pathy has not remained unanswered, and great 
 as were the faults of Burns there is no poet 
 who has had such eloquent defenders. It was 
 always easy for Burns to teach others how to 
 steer the course : he was an excellent coun- 
 sellor, and the pity of it is that he too often 
 " recked not his own rede." This is well illus- 
 trated in the " Epistle to a Young Friend," 
 66
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 written in compliment to Mr. Aiken, the writer 
 who had defended Gavin Hamilton against 
 Holy Willie's crew. Andrew Hunter Aiken, 
 the lawyer's eldest son, was then about to go 
 to business, and Burns wrote him the following 
 sound advice. The poem, composed in May 
 1786, was included in the Kilmarnock edition. 
 
 EPISTLE TO A YOUNG FRIEND 
 
 I lang ha'e thought, my youthfu' friend, 
 
 A something to have sent you. 
 Though it should serve nae other end 
 
 Than just a kind memento ; 
 But how the subject theme may gang, 
 
 Let time and chance determine ; 
 Perhaps it may turn out a sang, 
 
 Perhaps, turn out a sermon. 
 
 Ye'U try the world soon, my lad. 
 
 And, Andrew dear, believe me, 
 Ye'U find mankind an unco squad, 
 
 And muckle they may grieve ye : 
 For care and trouble set your thought, 
 
 E'en when your end's attained ; 
 And a' your views may come to nought, 
 
 Where every nerve is strained. 
 
 I'll no say men are villains a' ; 
 
 The real, hardened wicked, 
 Wha ha'e nae check but human law, 
 
 Are to a few restricted : 
 But och, mankind are unco weak, 
 
 An' little to be trusted ; 
 If Self the wavering balance shake. 
 
 It's rarely right adjusted ! 
 
 67
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 Yet they wha fa' in fortune's strife, 
 
 Their fate we should na censure, 
 For still th' important end of life 
 
 They equally may answer ; 
 A man may ha'e an honest heart, 
 
 Though poortith hourly stare him ; 
 A man may tak' a neebor's part. 
 
 Yet ha'e nae cash to spare him. 
 
 Aye free, aff han' your story tell, 
 
 When wi' a bosom crony ; 
 But still keep something to yoursel' 
 
 Ye scarcely tell to ony. 
 Conceal yoursel' as weel's ye can 
 
 Fra critical dissection ; 
 But keek through every other man, 
 
 Wi' sharpened, sly inspection. 
 
 The sacred lowe o' weel-placed love, 
 
 Luxuriantly indulge it ; 
 But never tempt th' illicit rove. 
 
 Though naething should divulge it : 
 I waive the quantum o' the sin. 
 
 The hazard of concealing : 
 But och ! it hardens a' within. 
 
 And petrifies the feeling ! 
 
 To catch dame Fortune's golden smile, 
 
 Assiduous wait upon her ; 
 And gather gear by every wile 
 
 That's justified by honour ; 
 Not for to hide it in a hedge, 
 
 Nor for a train attendant ; 
 But for the glorious privilege 
 
 Of being independent. 
 68
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 The fear o' Hell's a hangman's whip 
 
 To haud the wretch in order ; 
 But where ye feel your honour grip, 
 
 Let that aye be your border ; 
 Its slightest touches, instant pause — 
 
 Debar a' side pretences ; 
 And resolutely keep its laws. 
 
 Uncaring consequences. 
 
 The Great Creator to revere. 
 
 Must sure become the creature ; 
 But still the preaching cant forbear, 
 
 And e'en the rigid feature : 
 Yet ne'er with wits profane to range, 
 
 Be complaisance extended ; 
 An atheist's laugh's a poor exchange 
 
 For Deity offended ! 
 
 When ranting round in Pleasure's ring, 
 
 Religion may be blinded ; 
 Or if she gi'e a random sting, 
 
 It may be little minded ; 
 But when on Life we're tempest-driven, 
 
 A conscience but a canker — 
 A correspondence fixed wi' Heaven 
 
 Is sure a noble anchor ! 
 
 Adieu, dear amiable youth ! 
 
 Your heart can ne'er be wanting : 
 May Prudence, Fortitude, and Truth, 
 
 Erect your brow undaunting ! 
 In ploughman phrase, " God send you rpced," 
 
 Still daily to grow wiser ! 
 And may you better reck the rede, 
 
 Than ever did th' adviser ! 
 
 69
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 On July 31, 1786, the poems left the press. 
 The whole edition of 612 copies was sold out 
 immediately, and so great was the demand that 
 no copy could be spared for Mossgiel. The 
 price of the copy was 3s.; it is now nearly 3^1200. 
 The profit realised was some £20, and the first 
 thing the poet did was to book his passage for 
 Jamaica. But the ship was accidentally delayed 
 at Greenock, and the fame of the poems having 
 gone beyond Ayrshire, the friends of the poet 
 did their best to keep him in Scotland, some 
 suggesting one plan for his advancement, 
 some another. Going abroad was a disagreeable 
 necessity. Never hearty in the project, he was 
 quite unable to decide what should be done. 
 At last a criticism by Dr. Blacklock, the blind 
 poet, who advised him to issue a second edition 
 of the poems in Edinburgh, and assured him 
 that they were likely to obtain " a more 
 universal circulation than anything that has 
 been printed within my memory," decided 
 Burns to try his fortune in the capital. An 
 article by Sibbald in ** The Edinburgh Maga- 
 zine ' ' also encouraged him greatly. The upshot 
 was that the ship sailed from Greenock without 
 Burns. 
 
 In the autumn of 1786, either while the poems 
 were passing through the press or immediately 
 after, the poet produced the famous ' ' The 
 Twa Brigs," a dialogue modelled on Fer- 
 gusson's ** Dialogue between the Plainstanes 
 and the Causeway, ' ' but immeasurably superior 
 to it : 
 70
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 Auld Brig appear'd of ancient Pictish race, 
 The vera wrinkles Gothic in his face : 
 New Brig was buskit in a braw new coat, 
 That he at Lon'on frae ane Adams got. 
 
 Burns's poem is really a plea against that 
 species of vandalism which on the ground of 
 utility seeks to destroy what is old and artistic. 
 The Auld Brig still stands in Ayr, but its rival, 
 the New Brig, was swept away, as the poet 
 prophesied : 
 
 A Lesson sadly teaching to your cost, 
 That Architecture's noble art is lost. 
 
 The famous song " The Lass o* Ballochmyle " 
 is generally attributed to this period also, 
 it having been sent to the heroine on 
 November i8, 1786 ; but the poet definitely 
 states that he wrote it in the spring : 
 
 I had roved out, as chance directed, in the favourite 
 haunts of my muse, on the banks of the Ayr, to view 
 Nature in all the gayety of the vernal year. The 
 evening sun was flaming over the distant western 
 hills ; not a breath stirred the crimson opening 
 blossom, or the verdant spreading leaf. It was a 
 golden moment for a poetic heart. I listened to the 
 feathered warblers, pouring their harmony on every 
 hand, with a congenial, kindred regard, and frequently 
 turned out of my path lest I should disturb their little 
 songs, or frighten them to another station. " Surely," 
 said I to myself, ' ' he must be a wretch indeed who, 
 regardless of your harmonious endeavour to please 
 him, can eye your elusive flights to discover your 
 
 71
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 secret recesses, and to rob you of all the property 
 Nature gives you — your dearest comforts, your hapless 
 nestlings. Even the hoary hawthorn twig that shot 
 across the way, what heart at such a time but must 
 have been ^interested in its welfare, and wished it 
 preserved from the rudely browsing cattle, or the 
 withering eastern blast ? " Such was the scene, and 
 such the hour, when in a corner of my prospect I 
 spied one of the fairest pieces of Nature's workman- 
 ship that ever crowned a poetic landscape or met a 
 poet's eye. What an hour of inspiration for a poet ! 
 It would have raised plain, dull, historic prose into 
 metaphor and measure. The enclosed song was the 
 work of my return home, and perhaps it but poorly 
 answers what might have been expected from such 
 a scene. 
 
 Miss Wilhelmina Alexander, the daughter 
 of the owner of Ballochmyle, to whom the poem 
 and the letter were addressed, took no notice of 
 either. Burns was offended, and when Mrs. 
 Dunlop tried to excuse her, he said : " Had a 
 half-witling lord written the poem, madam, 
 would she have left it unanswered ? " Never- 
 theless the lady preserved both the letter and 
 the poem, and in her old age was proud of the 
 honour Burns had done her : 
 
 THE LASS O' BALLOCHMYLE 
 
 'Twas even — the dewy fields were green ; 
 
 On every blade the pearls hang ; 
 The zephyrs wantoned round the bean, 
 And bore its fragrant sweets alang ; 
 72
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 In every glen the mavis sang, 
 
 All Nature listening seemed the while, 
 
 Except where greenwood echoes rang, 
 Amang the braes o' Ballochmyle. 
 
 With careless step I onward strayed. 
 
 My heart rejoiced in Nature's joy, 
 When, musing in a lonely glade, 
 
 A maiden fair I chanced to spy : 
 Her look was like the Morning's eye, 
 
 Her air like Nature's vernal smile, 
 Perfection whispered, passing by, 
 
 Behold the lass o' Ballochmyle ! 
 
 Fair is the morn in flowery May, 
 
 And sweet is night in autumn mild ; 
 When roving through the garden gay, 
 
 Or wandering in the lonely wild : 
 But Woman, Nature's darling child 1 
 
 There all her charms she does compile ; 
 Ev'n there her other works are foiled 
 
 By the bonnie lass o' Ballochmyle. 
 
 O ! had she been a country maid, 
 
 And I the happy country swain, 
 Though sheltered in the lowest shed 
 
 That ever rose on Scotland's plain ; 
 Through weary winter's wind and rain. 
 
 With joy, with rapture I would toil ; 
 And nightly to my bosom strain 
 
 The bonnie lass o' Ballochmyle ! 
 
 Then Pride might climb the slippery steep, 
 Where fame and honours lofty shine ; 
 
 And thirst of gold might tempt the deep. 
 Or downward seek the Indian mine ; 
 
 73
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 Give me the cot below the pine, 
 To tend the flocks, or till the soil, 
 
 And every day have joys divine 
 With the bonnie lass o' Ballochmyle, 
 
 The publication of the poems brought Burns 
 many friends, the chief of whom were Pro- 
 fessor Dugald Stewart, of Edinburgh, and 
 Mrs. Dunlop, of Dunlop. Dugald Stewart had 
 a country-house at Catrine, not far from Moss- 
 giel, and one day he invited the young plough- 
 man to dinner. At the table he met Lord Daer, 
 a splendid young fellow whom he instantly 
 liked. He who in " The Cotter's Saturday 
 Night " had sneered at the lordling's pomp 
 now began to make exceptions : 
 
 LINES ON MEETING WITH LORD DAER 
 
 This wot ye all whom it concerns, 
 I, Rhymer Rabin, alias Bums, 
 
 October twenty-third, 
 A ne'er to be forgotten day, 
 Sae far I sprachled up the brae, 
 
 I dinner'd wi' a Lord. 
 
 I've been at drunken writers' feasts. 
 Nay, been bitch-fou 'mang godly priests, 
 
 Wi' rev'rence be it spoken ; 
 I've even join'd the honour'd jorum. 
 When mighty Squireships of the quorum 
 
 Their hydra drouth did sloken. 
 
 But wi' a Lord — stand out my shin ! 
 A Lord — a Peer — an Earl's son ! 
 
 Up higher yet, my bonnet ! 
 74
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 An* sic a Lord — lang Scotch ells twa, 
 Our Peerage he o'erlooks them a' 
 
 As I look o'er my sonnet. 
 
 But, O for Hogarth's magic pow'r ! 
 To show Sir Bardie's willyart glow'r, 
 
 And how he stared and stammer 'd, 
 When goavan, as if led wi' branks 
 An' stumpin' on his ploughman shanks, 
 
 He in the parlour hammer 'd. 
 
 I sidling sheltered in a nook. 
 An' at his Lordship steal't a look, 
 
 Like some portentous omen ; 
 Except good sense and social glee, 
 An' (what surprised me) modesty, 
 
 I marked nought uncommon. 
 
 I watch 'd the sjrtnptoms o' the Great, 
 The gentle pride, the lordly state. 
 
 The arrogant assuming ; 
 The fient a pride, nae pride had he. 
 Nor sauce, nor state, that I could see, 
 
 Mair than an honest ploughman. 
 
 Then from his Lordship I shall learn, 
 Henceforth to meet with unconcern 
 
 One rank as weel's another ; 
 Nae honest, worthy man need care 
 To meet with noble youthful Daer, 
 
 For he but meets a brother. 
 
 On November 27, 1786, Burns, riding a 
 borrowed pony, left Mossgiel for Edinburgh, 
 sixty miles distant. At Biggar, in Lanarkshire, 
 
 75
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 he broke his journey and was entertained by a 
 farmer acquaintance. He reached Edinburgh 
 on the 29th, and, happening to meet a west- 
 countryman proceeding home, asked him to 
 return the pony to the owner. The proceeds of 
 the Kilmarnock edition had largely gone to 
 pay his passage to Jamaica, so Burns was in 
 his usual financial condition. Having sought 
 out a Mauchline man, a clerk named Richmond 
 who at that time rented a room at half a crown 
 a week, Burns arranged to lodge with him, and 
 shared his bed during the visit. For a day or 
 two the poet wandered about Edinburgh, 
 feasting his eyes on scenes famous in Scotland's 
 story, many of them recalling the glorious names 
 he himself had sung in the obscurity of his 
 Ayrshire home. His feelings found vent in the 
 '•Address to Edinburgh," written a few days 
 after his arrival : 
 
 Wild beats my heart to trace your steps 
 Whose ancestors, in days of yore, 
 Thro' hostile ranks and ruin'd gaps 
 Old Scotia's bloody lion bore : 
 Ev'n I who sing in rustic lore. 
 Haply my Sires have left their shed, 
 And fac'd grim Danger's loudest roar, 
 Bold-following where your Fathers led ! 
 
 It is characteristic of Burns, this satisfying 
 of his artistic soul first. It might be expected 
 that he would have sought out Dr. Blacklock, 
 whose criticism had determined him to try his 
 fortune in the capital, but it was not until some 
 76
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 weeks had gone by that Burns, by special invi- 
 tation, called on his friendly critic, and then, as 
 it happened, he no longer needed the proffered 
 help. The poet entered Edinburgh a gawky, 
 somewhat ungainly rustic, all eyes, an impu- 
 dent staring fellow to outward appearance ; 
 but when it was noised abroad that this was 
 Mr. Burns, the poet, society received him with 
 open arms. Within a fortnight he was writing 
 to his Ayrshire friends brief accounts of his 
 wonderful reception. The local gentry stood 
 loyally by their neighbour. Mr. Dalrymple, of 
 Orangefield, introduced him to the highest 
 social set ; Dugald Stewart made him free of 
 the best intellectual society also. A week after 
 his arrival — on December 7, to be precise — 
 Gavin Hamilton got all the news : " For my 
 own affairs, I am in a fair way of becoming as 
 eminent as Thomas a Kempis or John Bunyan ; 
 and you may expect henceforth to see my birth- 
 day inserted among the wonderful events. . . . 
 My Lord Glencairn and the Dean of Faculty, 
 Mr. H. Erskine, have taken me under their 
 wing ; and by all probability I shall soon be 
 the tenth worthy, and the eighth wise man of 
 the world. Through my lord's influence it is 
 inserted in the records of the Caledonian Hunt 
 that they universally, one and all, subscribe for 
 the 2d edition. My subscription bills come 
 out to-morrow. ..." Six days later he informs 
 his friend Ballantine, of Ayr, to whom he had 
 dedicated " The Twa Brigs," that he had been 
 introduced to a good many of the noblesse, but 
 
 77
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 his avowed patrons and patronesses were the 
 Duchess of Gordon ; the Countess of Glencairn, 
 with my Lord, and Lady Betty ; the Dean of 
 Faculty ; Sir John Whitefoord ; Patrick Miller, 
 of Dalswinton. Amongst his literary friends 
 he includes Professors Stewart and Blair, 
 and Mr. Mackenzie — the Man of Feeling, so 
 designated from the title of his most important 
 work. On December 14 Creech, the leading 
 publisher, advertised the poems as in the press, 
 "to be published by subscription for the sole 
 benefit of the author." In short, the success 
 of Burns was instantaneous. He took Edin- 
 burgh by storm. 
 
 The Henry Mackenzie mentioned above was 
 the man whose reputation as a critic stood 
 highest in Scotland. He had just done Burns a 
 great service. On December 9, a generous critique 
 from his pen appeared in "The Lounger," a 
 magazine of the Addisonian type edited by him. 
 This, of course, was not the first favourable 
 review Burns had received, but certainly it was 
 the most authoritative that could be given. 
 Mackenzie boldly pronounced the poet a genius 
 of no ordinary rank. After quoting some stanzas 
 from " The Vision " and all of " To a Mountain 
 Daisy," the critic continued : " The power of 
 genius is not less admirable in tracing the 
 manners than in painting the passions or in 
 drawing the scenery of Nature. That intuitive 
 glance with which a writer like Shakespeare 
 discerns the characters of men, with v/hich he 
 catches the many-changing hues of life, forms 
 78
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 a sort of problem in the science of mind, of 
 which it is easier to see the truth than to assign 
 the cause. Though I am very far from meaning 
 to compare our rustic bard to Shakespeare, 
 yet whoever will read his lighter and more 
 humorous poems, his Dialogue of the Dogs, 
 his Dedication to G[avin] H[amilton], Esq., 
 his Epistles to a Young Friend and to W[illiam] 
 S[imson], will perceive with what uncommon 
 penetration and sagacity this Heaven-taught 
 ploughman, from his humble and unlettered 
 station, has looked upon men and manners." 
 
 It is somewhat surprising to find Mackenzie 
 anticipating the trend of modern criticism in 
 selecting for his highest praise those genuine 
 bursts of racy humour. The Man of Feeling was 
 a sentimentalist of the school of Sterne, he was 
 regarded as the acme of polite learning, in his 
 own works he shows a staid respectability 
 verging even on genteel smugness, he is every- 
 where the moralist ; but this judgment of his 
 on Burns shows that he was no mere bookish 
 critic and that his knowledge of life was not 
 gained by looking at it always through senti- 
 mental glasses. Mackenzie had been one of the 
 formative influences of Burns. The poet wore 
 out two copies of " The Man of Feeling," 
 carrying it about with him in his pocket to dip 
 into at odd moments. When he drew the idyllic 
 scene of " The Cotter's Saturday Night," when 
 he proclaimed his boundless love of mankind 
 in '* The Twa Dogs," when he showed his large- 
 hearted sensibility in " To a Mouse," when he 
 
 79
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 sympathised with the poor outcast creatures 
 in " The Jolly Beggars" and offered even the 
 devil a crumb of comfort in " The Address to 
 the Deil," when he luxuriated in his own grief 
 as in " The Dirge " and " Despondency," 
 Burns showed himself the true child of his age 
 and gave his own powerful expression to 
 eighteenth-century commonplaces. Thus as 
 a sentimentalist he had a distinct claim on 
 Mackenzie, but there was a danger that the 
 daring originality and racy humour of Burns 
 might not be favoured by the critic. 
 
 The year 1787 was one of Burns's lean years. 
 Balls, masques, dinners, breakfasts, claret 
 parties, masonic meetings, drinking clubs, 
 social conviviality in all its forms and grada- 
 tions, these checked the flow of genius. Of 
 the poems said to have been composed at Edin- 
 burgh only one, " To a Haggis," is of outstand- 
 ing merit, and even that may have been written 
 earlier. In the first flush of fame Burns behaved 
 grandly. He did not run after the great : it 
 was they who sought him out. His whole con- 
 duct at this time betokened modest independence 
 based on conscious merit. He had come to 
 Edinburgh not to flatter, not to curry favour, 
 not to write to command, but to sell what he 
 had already written, to take his stand on his 
 own merits, and, if fortune so far favoured him, 
 to mingle with the great as their intellectual, 
 and almost their social, equal. He knew his 
 own powers, and while he was always courteous 
 to those who offered him criticisms, he rarely 
 80
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 accepted their judgment. Indeed, only once did 
 he alter a single word. In this case the critic 
 was the great Dr. Blair. What Burns thought 
 of Blair is recorded in the commonplace book 
 which the poet commenced to keep in Edin- 
 burgh. He regarded him as merely an astonish- 
 ing proof of what industry and application 
 could do, and as a critic of the very first rank 
 in Prose. But Blair had a kind heart and 
 was doing his best, in his superior way, so 
 Burns humoured him on one solitary occasion. 
 It is rather amusing to find the rustic in the 
 privacy of his diary criticising the fine gentry 
 whom he met. Not all the lords had the prac- 
 tical common sense of the Earl of Eglintoun, 
 who, remembering that, pending the publica- 
 tion of the poems, Burns might need some ready 
 cash, paid his subscription of ten guineas 
 three months in advance. The Earl of Buchan, 
 on the other hand, wrote that he was going to 
 buy six copies for himself, and on the strength 
 of this order presumed to dictate to the poet 
 a recipe for his future greatness. Buchan's 
 poetic counsels are of little value, but one 
 quaintly turned sentence concerning general 
 conduct is almost prophetic in its significance : 
 ** Keep your Eye upon Parnassus and drink 
 deep of the fountains of Helicon, but beware 
 of the Joy that is dedicated to the Jolly God 
 of wine." To all such letters the bard wrote 
 discreet replies. 
 
 Burns was violent in his likes and dislilces, 
 and often his predilections were founded on 
 
 F 8i
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 no reasonable basis. This trait explains his 
 extravagant love — a love almost approaching 
 worship — of James, Earl of Glencairn. This 
 nobleman was the means of getting the entire 
 Caledonian Hunt to subscribe for the poems, 
 and amongst his private friends he seems to 
 have acted as a canvasser for the poet. He 
 sent a parcel of subscription bills to the Marquis 
 of Graham ** with downright orders to get them 
 filled up with all the first Scottish names at 
 Court." But others had done equally well. 
 The real secret of Glencairn's influence over 
 Burns was his personal charm and his good 
 heart. He treated Burns, as did Lord Daer, 
 as a man and a brother, and the poet saw that 
 he was sincere. Burns was ever a grateful 
 man, but the love he bore Glencairn was not 
 merely the love of gratitude. It was the strong 
 love of a kindred spirit. 
 
 It is characteristic of Burns that as soon as 
 possible he sought out the grave of Fergusson, 
 and, finding it ill kept, asked and was granted 
 permission to put it into decent order. At his 
 own expense he caused a simple stone suitably 
 inscribed to be placed over the grave. In this 
 way Burns showed his reverence for and grati- 
 tude to his predecessor. Almost at the same 
 time a young lad who was afterwards to achieve 
 fame as a writer was brought for a brief space 
 to pay his homage to the ploughman-poet. 
 Walter Scott met Burns at one of the Edinburgh 
 salons, and in after-days used to recall the 
 meeting with pride. The incident through which 
 82
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 he won the praise of the poet is well known. 
 Nasmyth, a young landscape painter, but to 
 whom the world owes the best portrait of 
 Burns, was at this period frequently with 
 him, and the artist in words and the artist in 
 colour made excursions together in the environs 
 of the city. Of a more convivial turn, and 
 therefore more in the night than in the day 
 society, was William Nicol, a master in the High 
 School. His name henceforth figures largely in 
 Burns's correspondence. One of the last men 
 that Burns met in Edinburgh was James 
 Johnson, who was then engaged in collecting 
 and publishing in * ' The Scots Musical Museum ' ' 
 many of the old favourite songs of the country- 
 side. This appealed especially to Burns, and he 
 at once promised Johnson all the assistance in 
 his power. Most of Burns's subsequent songs 
 appeared in this publication. Many years after- 
 wards no fewer than 184 of the pieces which 
 compose the collection were found written out 
 in Burns's own hand. 
 
 The Edinburgh Edition came out on April 
 21, 1787. Its success was already assured, and 
 having no longer anything to detain him in 
 the capital. Burns set out for home. He went 
 by a circuitous route, by the Border country, 
 proceeding as far south as Newcastle before 
 turning westward and northward. Everywhere 
 on the journey he was made much of : was 
 entertained by the best people ; elected a free 
 member of many masonic lodges ; enrolled a 
 freeman of several towns — and in this connec- 
 
 83
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 tion Dumfries is notable. Burns met many 
 beautiful ladies, paid them poetic compliments, 
 and recorded their charms in his diary. But 
 on his return to Mauchline the old intimacy 
 with Jean Armour was at once renewed. He 
 was now recognised as of national importance, 
 and the Armour household showed such a 
 change of front that Burns was disgusted with 
 their servility. Save for Jean, Mauchline was 
 no longer attractive. The poet had arrived 
 back on June 9, 1787, and a few days later he 
 was off on his travels again. He toured in the 
 West Highlands, came back to Mauchline 
 towards the end of July, and proceeded again 
 to Edinburgh early in August. The profits of 
 the second edition were considerable, and Burns 
 was now able to satisfy a long-cherished ambi- 
 tion to visit some of the most famous scenes 
 in his country's story. Accompanied by Nichol, 
 he set out for a long tour in the Highlands. 
 Proceeding by Stirlingshire, Perthshire, and 
 Inverness, he returned by Aberdeen and the 
 east coast, and so was enabled to visit his 
 relatives in Kincardineshire. On this tour he 
 kept a diary which is singularly disappointing 
 to those who have read the journals of other 
 poets in similar circumstances. With some 
 notable exceptions, it is the barest of itineraries ; 
 but frequent allusions to crops, farms, and 
 estate management indicate that the diarist 
 looked around him with the eye of the prospect- 
 ing agriculturist. As a matter of fact, he was 
 contemplating the possibilities of his own
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 future career. Another short tour in the 
 Devon valley brought his journeyings to a close. 
 
 He was again in Edinburgh in September 
 1787, and there he remained in idleness until 
 March 1788. This, his second lengthy stay in 
 the capital, was very different from his first 
 triumphant entry. He was no longer feted and 
 lionised by society. Indeed, he was actually 
 cold-shouldered. Carlyle waxes eloquently in- 
 dignant at this neglect of genius and mourns 
 for the dead lion ; but Burns, while he could 
 not but be aware of the changed manner of 
 many of his fine friends, seems to have resigned 
 himself to it with philosophic cheerfulness. 
 Perhaps he himself was to blame. Doubtless 
 he made some mistakes of the grosser sort, 
 and on occasion may have scandalised the 
 gossips. A good deal of tittle-tattle began to 
 be circulated about him, and from this time on 
 till his death he was much distressed by and 
 strove to defend himself against the slander 
 which imputed drunkenness to him. Burns in 
 his cups certainly was guilty of some indis- 
 cretions, but the rarity of these occasions seems 
 to have added to rather than lessened the enor- 
 mity of such offences, which, after all, were 
 those of his age. No man grieved so much 
 over his shortcomings : no man suffered so 
 keenly the pangs of remorse. Even in this he 
 displays true nobility of soul. 
 
 Burns at first had no intention of spending 
 so much time in Edinburgh. His chief business 
 there was to settle accounts with Creech, the 
 
 85
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 publisher of the second edition. The profits of 
 the publication are variously estimated from 
 3^400 to £700, but Creech had to be dunned for 
 the money. He kept Burns off with fair promises, 
 and it was only after two years had elapsed 
 that he gave the poet his final payment. Another 
 cause contributed to Burns 's enforced idleness. 
 He had the misfortune to break his leg, and 
 was laid up for several months. During this 
 time he began a remarkable correspondence 
 with Mrs. McLehose, a pretty and witty young 
 lady, the wife of a planter in the West Indies. 
 This correspondence has now been published in 
 full, and it adds to the mystery of Burns. Carried 
 on in the most romantic manner by the poet 
 under the pseudonym of Sylvander and by the 
 lady as Clarinda, if sincere it is certainly one 
 of the most remarkable intrigues even in the 
 loves of poets, and if artificial it is surely the 
 most wonderful game of make-believe ever 
 played. Some of Burns 's best verses celebrate 
 Clarinda. 
 
 In March 1788 the poet was well enough to 
 leave Edinburgh. He felt that the life he led 
 there was fast demoralising him, and therefore he 
 was much concerned to get some settled employ- 
 ment. Several avenues were open to him : he 
 might support himself by literary work ; he 
 might try farming again ; he might secure a 
 Government appointment from his influential 
 friends. Burns could not bring himself to write 
 deliberately for gain, and he felt that he must 
 have some certainty of maintenance apart 
 86
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 altogether from writing. Nevertheless he de- 
 termined that in whatever calling he should 
 pursue there must be leisure for poetry. An 
 official appointment might meet the case. 
 Quite early in his career Burns had thought of 
 the Excise as a suitable vocation, but his gorge 
 had risen at the thought of spending his life 
 gauging beer-barrels. But the salary of a 
 Collector in the Excise ranged from £300 to 
 ;£8oo and the duties were comparatively light, 
 and if rapid promotion could be ensured it was 
 worth while to perform the drudgery of the 
 lower grades. With influential backing Burns 
 believed that a Collectorship was easily within 
 his reach. He therefore asked his friends, the 
 Earl of Glencairn and Mr. Graham, of Fintry, 
 to nominate him in case he should decide to 
 enter the Government service. When he left 
 Edinburgh he carried with him an Excise 
 commission which on presentation to the 
 authorities would ensure him employment, but 
 he was resolved to make use of it only as a 
 last resort. The most attractive prospect of all 
 was that of farming. He was now in possession 
 of sufficient capital to stock a farm which 
 would guarantee him a livelihood. He would 
 be his own master and have leisure to write. 
 '• A life of literary leisure with a decent com- 
 petency," he says in one of his letters, " is 
 the summit of my wishes." Having debated 
 thus in his mind for many months, he deter- 
 mined to try farming, and if that should fail, 
 to fall back upon the Excise. 
 
 87
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 Leaving Edinburgh, and breaking off his 
 intercourse with Clarinda, he hied him to 
 Mauchline, and there, shortly after, espoused 
 Jean Armour. Burns had had many romantic 
 attachments, but there is no doubt that Jean 
 was the lass that he loved best. He never 
 regretted his choice. She understood his nature 
 thoroughly and proved a loyal and sympathetic 
 wife. After having been offered a choice of 
 several farms by an Edinburgh patron, Patrick 
 Miller, of Dalswinton, he entered upon the 
 tenancy of Ellisland, a farm beautifully situated 
 on the banks of the Nith, six miles from Dum- 
 fries. His wife was left at Mauchline, for there 
 was no house on the farm. He himself dwelt 
 in a hut during the months that the house 
 was being built, and besides the labours of the 
 farm he also superintended the operations of 
 the artisans. It was during this period of lone- 
 liness that he composed, in honour of his wife, 
 the popular song, ** I love my Jean." 
 
 OF A' THE AIRTS THE WIND CAN BLAW 
 
 Of a' the airts the wind can blaw, 
 
 I dearly like the west. 
 For there the bonnie lassie lives. 
 
 The lassie I lo'e best : 
 There wild woods grow, and rivers row, 
 
 And mony a hill between. 
 But day and night my fancy's flight 
 
 Is ever wi' my Jean. 
 
 I see her in the dewy flowers, 
 I see her sweet and fair ; 
 
 88
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 I hear her in the tunefu' birds, 
 
 I hear her charm the air : 
 There's not a bonnie flower that springs 
 
 By fountain, shaw, or green. 
 There's not a bonnie bird that sings, 
 
 But minds me o' my Jean. 
 
 In December 1788 he brought his young 
 wife from Mauchline, and, observing an old 
 Scottish custom, they entered their new home 
 arm-in-arm, preceded by a servant carrying a 
 Bible. This arrangement was supposed to bring 
 good fortune, but alas ! Burns's halcyon time 
 was of short duration. The same ill-luck dogged 
 his footsteps. Ellisland proved a failure as a 
 farm. Its tenant began to rue his choice, and, 
 were it not for the underlying tragedy, the 
 language he used in describing its sterility 
 would provoke laughter. It was well that 
 he had his Excise commission to fall back 
 upon, for, in his own picturesque phrase, 
 " the riddlings of creation " — that is, 
 Ellisland — ^would soon have reduced him 
 to beggary. In the face of starvation he 
 no longer harboured aesthetic scruples, but 
 very wisely presented his commission, and 
 almost at once received an appointment as an 
 Exciseman for the district in which his farm 
 was situated. This was in 1789. The remune- 
 ration for the Excise work was £50 per annum, 
 sufficient, with the farm, to keep the wolf from 
 the door. Although Burns thought his new 
 profession somewhat degrading for' a poet, he 
 did not shirk the unpleasant work, and in the 
 
 89
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 hope of rising by sheer merit he discharged 
 his duties with exemplary zeal. In his letters 
 he looked forward to being a " collector " or 
 even " surveyor-general," and^it was_^his^ inten- 
 tion to work EUisland as a dairy-farm till the 
 hoped-for promotion came. Then he would 
 give up the farm altogether, lead a more leisurely 
 life, and devote himself to poetry. Meanwhile 
 he found Excise work physically trying : he 
 had the supervision of ten parishes and had to 
 ride, on an average, and of course in all weathers, 
 200 miles a week. Robert Ainslie, the friend 
 who had accompanied him on his Border 
 journey, visited him at EUisland and found him 
 in a very cheery frame of mind : " Our friend 
 is as ingenious as ever. His mind seems to me 
 to be a great mixture of the poet and Exciseman. 
 One day he sits down and writes a beautiful 
 poem — and the next seizes a cargo of tobacco 
 from some unfortunate smuggler, or roups out 
 some poor wretch for selling liquors without a 
 licence." 
 
 The flow of poetry of the EUisland period, 
 while inconsiderable compared with the won- 
 derful flood-tide of Mossgiel, nevertheless was 
 remarkably steady. The poet mainly busied him- 
 self with song-writing, most of his productions 
 being published in Johnson's ** Musical Mu- 
 seum," to which reference has already been 
 made. Some of Burns 's most famous songs 
 were written at EUisland. " O were I on 
 Parnassus Hill," " McPherson's Farewell," 
 ** Auld Lang Syne," "Up in the Morning 
 90
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 Early," " My Bonnie Mary," " John Ander- 
 son," "My Heart's in the Highlands," "Tarn 
 Glen," "The Banks of Nith," "The Banks 
 o' Doon," " Afton Water," are a few of those 
 composed between the years 1788 and 1791. 
 
 AULD LANG SYNE 
 
 Should auld acquaintance be forgot. 
 
 And never brought to min' ? 
 Should auld acquaintance be forgot, 
 
 And auld lang syne ? 
 
 CHORUS 
 
 For auld lang syne, my dear. 
 
 For auld lang syne, 
 We'll tak' a cup o' kindness yet, 
 
 For auld lang syne ! 
 
 We twa ha'e run about the brae. 
 
 And pou'd the gowans fine ; 
 But we've wandered mony a weary foot 
 
 Sin' auld lang syne. 
 For auld, &c. 
 
 We twa ha'e paidl'd i' the burn, 
 
 Frae morning sun till dine ; 
 But seas between us braid ha'e roared 
 
 Sin' auld lang syne. 
 For auld, &c. 
 
 And here's a hand, my trustie fiere. 
 
 And gie's a hand o' thine ; 
 And we'll tak' a right guid willie-waught. 
 For auld lang syne ! 
 For auld, &c. 
 
 91
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 And surely ye '11 be your pint-stoup, 
 
 And surely I'll be mine ; 
 And we'll tak' a cup o' kindness yet 
 
 For auld lang syne. 
 For auld, &c. 
 
 THE BANKS OF NITH 
 
 The Thames flows proudly to the sea, 
 
 Where royal cities stately stand ; 
 But sweeter flows the Nith to me. 
 
 Where Cummins ance had high command : 
 When shall I see that honour'd land. 
 
 That winding stream I love so dear ? 
 Must wayward fortune's adverse hand 
 
 For ever, ever keep me here ? 
 
 How lovely, Nith, thy fruitful vales. 
 
 Where spreading hawthorns gaily bloom ; 
 How sweetly wind thy sloping dales, 
 
 Where lambkins wander thro' the broom ! 
 Tho' wandering, now, must be my doom, 
 
 Far from thy bonnie banks and braes. 
 May there my latest hours consume, 
 
 Amang my friends of early days I 
 
 THE BANKS 0' DOON 
 
 Ye banks and braes o' bonnie Doon, 
 
 How can ye bloom sae fresh and fair ? 
 How can ye chant, ye little birds, 
 
 And I sae weary, fu' o' care ! 
 Thou '11 break my heart, thou warbling bird, 
 
 That wantons through the flowering thorn ! 
 Thou minds me o' departed joys. 
 
 Departed — never to return I 
 92
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 Oft ha'e I roved by bonnie Doon, 
 
 To see the rose and woodbine twine ; 
 And ilka bird sang o' its luve, 
 
 And fondly sae did I o' mine. 
 Wi' lightsome heart I pu'd a rose, 
 
 Fu' sweet upon its thorny tree ; 
 And my fause lover stole my rose, 
 
 But, ah ! he left the thorn wi' me. 
 
 AFTON WATER 
 
 Flow gently, sweet Afton, among thy green braes. 
 Flow gently, I'll sing thee a song in thy praise ; 
 My Mary's asleep by thy murmuring stream, — 
 Flow gently, sweet Afton, disturb not her dream. 
 
 Thou stock-dove, whose echo resounds through the 
 
 glen, 
 Ye wild whistling blackbirds in yon thorny den, 
 Thou green-crested lapwing thy screaming forbear, — 
 I charge you, disturb not my slumbering fair !^ 
 
 How lofty, sweet Afton, thy neighbouring hills. 
 Far-marked with the courses of clear-winding rills ! 
 There daily I wander, as noon rises high. 
 My flocks and my Mary's sweet cot in my eye. 
 
 How pleasant thy banks and green valleys below. 
 Where wild in the woodlands the primroses blow ; 
 There oft as mild evening weeps over the lea, 
 The sweet-scented birk shades my Mary and me. 
 
 Thy crystal stream, Afton, how lovely it glides. 
 And winds by the cot where my Mary resides ; 
 How wanton thy waters her snawy feet lave. 
 As gath'ring sweet flowerets, she stems thy clear wave ! 
 
 93
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 Flow gently, sweet Afton, among thy green braes, 
 Flow gently, sweet river, the theme of my lays ; 
 My Mary's asleep by thy murmuring stream, — 
 Flow gently, sweet Afton, disturb not her dream ! 
 
 On Burns's settling in Dumfriesshire his 
 company was much sought after by the neigh- 
 bouring gentry, and the poet was the life and 
 soul of many merry meetings. His chief asso- 
 ciate was an immediate neighbour, Captain 
 Riddel of GlenriddeL For this gentleman he 
 copied out many of his unpublished poems. 
 These now constitute the Glenriddel manu- 
 script. At Friar's Carse, the home of the gallant 
 captain, took place a great drinking bout 
 between three Nithsdale gentlemen, the prize 
 being a small ebony whistle said to have been 
 brought to Scotland by a Danish gentleman in 
 the train of Anne of Denmark, wife of James 
 the Sixth. Burns celebrated the contest in a 
 ballad of no particular interest. An episode of 
 a similar nature, but in which the poet took 
 a more active part, happened at Moffat in the 
 autumn of 1789, and gave rise to what has been 
 called the best Bacchanalian song ever written, 
 *' Willie brew'd a Peck o' Maut." Burns gave 
 the following account of its origin in a brief 
 note in the " Musical Museum " : " This air 
 is Masterton's ; the song mine. The occasion 
 of it was this. Mr. Wm. Nicol of the High School, 
 Edinburgh, during the autumn vacation being 
 at Moffat, honest Allan, who was at that time 
 on a visit to Dalswinton, and I went to pay 
 94
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 Nicol a visit. We had such a joyous meeting 
 that Mr. Masterton and I agreed, each in our 
 own way, that we should celebrate the busi- 
 
 ness." 
 
 WILLIE BREW'D A PECK 0' MAUT 
 
 O, Willie brew'd a peck o' maut, 
 
 And Rob and Allan cam' to see ; 
 Three blither hearts, that lee lang night. 
 
 Ye wad na found in Christendie. 
 
 CHORUS 
 
 We are na fou, we're nae that fou, 
 
 But just a drappie in our e'e ! 
 The cock may craw, the day may daw'. 
 
 And ay we'll taste the barley bree ! 
 
 Here are we met, three merry boys. 
 
 Three merry boys, I trow, are we ; 
 And mony a night we've merry been. 
 
 And mony mae we hope to be ! 
 
 It is the moon — I ken her horn. 
 
 That's blinkin' in the lift sae hie ; 
 She shines sae bright to wyle us hame. 
 
 But, by my sooth, she'll wait a wee ! 
 
 Wha first shall rise to gang awa', 
 
 A cuckold, coward loon is he ! 
 Wha last beside his chair shall fa', 
 
 He is the king amang us three ! 
 
 We are na fou, we're nae that fou, 
 
 But just a drappie in our e'e ; 
 The cock may craw, the day may daw', 
 
 And ay we'll taste the barley bree. 
 
 95
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 Burns was largely a man of moods, and it is 
 but natural that these moods should be reflected 
 in his poetry. The volte face from gay to 
 grave is strikingly exemplified in a pathetic 
 love-lyric which, though it seems almost in- 
 credible, was composed at the same time as 
 the above " swaggering upspring reel." Mary 
 Campbell had died in 1786, and the third anni- 
 versary of her death had come. Her memory 
 was dear to Burns — ^but let Jean tell the story 
 in her own words: "When the gloaming 
 came, he grew sad about something : he could 
 not rest. He wandered first up the water-side, 
 and then went to the barnyard ; and I followed 
 him, begging him to come in, as he was ill, 
 and the air was cold and sharp. He always 
 promised, but still remained where he was, 
 striding up and down, and looking at the clear 
 sky, and particularly at a star that shone like 
 another moon." When at last Burns entered 
 the house he called for ink and paper and 
 transcribed the following verses : 
 
 TO MARY IN HEAVEN 
 
 Thou lingering star, with lessening ray, 
 
 That lov'st to greet the early morn, 
 Again thou usher 'st in the day 
 
 My Mary from my soul was torn. 
 O Mary ! dear departed shade ! 
 
 Where is thy place of blissful rest ? 
 Seest thou thy lover lowly laid ? 
 
 Hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast ? 
 96
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 That sacred hour can I forget ? 
 
 Can I forget the hallowed grove, 
 Where, by the winding Ayr, we met, 
 
 To live one day of parting love ? 
 Eternity will not efface 
 
 Those records dear of transports past ; 
 Thy image at our last embrace — 
 
 Ah, little thought we 'twas our last ! 
 
 Ayr, gurgling, kissed his pebbled shore, 
 
 O'erhung with wild woods, thickening green ; 
 The fragrant birch, and hawthorn hoar. 
 
 Twined am'rous round the raptured scene ; 
 The flowers sprang wanton to be prest, 
 f^?<: The birds sang love on every spray — 
 Till too, too soon the glowing west, 
 f)^ Proclaimed the speed of winged day. 
 
 Still o'er these scenes my mem'ry wakes, 
 
 And fondly broods with miser care ! 
 Time but th' impression stronger makes, 
 
 As streams their channels deeper wear. 
 My Mary, dear departed shade ! 
 
 Where is thy place of blissful rest ? 
 Seest thou thy lover lowly laid ? 
 
 Hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast ? 
 
 It is noticeable that some of Burns's most 
 serious pieces are written largely in English — • 
 witness " Man was made to mourn," parts of 
 "The Cotter's Saturday Night," and "To 
 Mary in Heaven." In his songs, too, he deli- 
 berately picked and chose those Scotch words 
 which he thought would add to the musical 
 
 G 97
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 effect and were otherwise suitable to the theme. 
 If one tries to substitute the English forms of 
 these words one finds that, though the metre 
 in most cases remains unaltered, there is still 
 some loss of charm. Burns boldly claimed 
 musical superiority for the dialect, and in his 
 letters to his publisher always insisted on being 
 allowed " a sprinkling of Scotch words." On 
 the other hand, in his humorous poems Burns 
 made a full use of Scotch, and in this con- 
 nection it is well to remember that much 
 of the dialect was really a survival of the older 
 literary forms, and, though understood, was 
 not really the speech either of Burns or of his 
 contemporaries. 
 
 In 1790 the poet, all his life of a mercurial 
 temperament, was growing more and more 
 despondent. The cares of a growing family 
 began to weigh heavy upon him, and he 
 feared for the future. Nevertheless to this 
 year belongs the merry tale of "Tarn o' 
 Shanter." At Friar's Carse the poet met an 
 English antiquary, by name Captain Grose, 
 who was travelling in Scotland in order to secure 
 material for a book, " The Antiquities of Scot- 
 land." The antiquary was a witty, good- 
 natured, funny little man, and Burns and he 
 became great friends. Burns asked him to 
 include an account of Alloway Kirk in his 
 book, and the antiquary promised to do so if 
 the poet would provide some verses to accom- 
 pany an engraving of the ruin. Burns fulfilled 
 the condition in a most startling manner by 
 98
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 producing, not a few verses, but a long poem. 
 It was composed on a single day in the fields, 
 and was written out by the poet — with the top 
 of a sod dyke for a desk ! Burns used to revel 
 in this poem, and always affirmed that it was 
 his best work. 
 
 TAM 0' SHANTER 
 
 When chapman billies leave the street, 
 And drouthy neebors neebors meet, 
 As market-days are wearing late, 
 An' folk begin to tak' the gate ; 
 While we sit bousing at the nappy. 
 An' getting fou and unco happy, 
 We think na on the lang Scots miles, 
 The mosses, waters, slaps, and stiles, 
 That lie between us and our hame, 
 Whare sits our sulky, sullen dame. 
 Gathering her brows like gathering storm, 
 Nursing her wrath to keep it warm. 
 
 This truth fand honest Tam o' Shanter, 
 As he frae Ayr ae night did canter, 
 (Auld Ayr, wham ne'er a town surpasses, 
 For honest men and bonny lasses.) 
 
 O Tam ! hadst thou but been sae wise. 
 As ta'en thy ain wife Kate's advice ! 
 She tauld thee weel thou was a skellum, 
 A blethering, blustering, drunken blellum. 
 That frae November till October, 
 Ae market-day thou was nae sober ; 
 That ilka melder, wi' the miller. 
 Thou sat as lang as thou had siller ; 
 
 99
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 That every naig was ca'd a shoe on, 
 The smith and thee gat roaring fou on ; 
 That at the Lord's house, ev'n on Sunday, 
 Thou drank wi' Kirkton Jean till Monday. 
 She prophesied that, late or soon. 
 Thou would be found deep drowned in Doon ; 
 Or catched wi' warlocks in the mirk, 
 By AUoway's auld haunted kirk. 
 
 Ah, gentle dames ! it gars me greet. 
 To think how mony counsels sweet. 
 How many lengthened sage advices, 
 The husband frae the wife despises ! 
 
 But to our tale : Ae market-night, 
 Tarn had got planted unco right ; 
 Fast by an ingle bleezing finely, 
 Wi' reaming swats, that drank divinely ; 
 And at his elbow, Souter Johnny, 
 His ancient, trusty, drouthy crony ; 
 Tam lo'ed him like a vera brither ; 
 They had been fou for weeks thegither. 
 The night drave on wi' sangs an' clatter ; 
 And aye the ale was growing better : 
 The landlady and Tam grew gracious, 
 Wi' favours, secret, sweet, and precious : 
 The Souter tauld his queerest stories ; 
 The landlord's laugh was ready chorus : 
 The storm without might rair and rustle, 
 Tam did na mind the storm a whistle. 
 Care, mad to see a man sae happy. 
 E'en drowned himself amang the nappy ; 
 As bees flee hame wi' lades o' treasure, 
 The minutes winged their way wi' pleasure : 
 Kings may be blest, but Tam was glorious, 
 O'er a' the ills o' life victorious ! 
 
 100
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 But pleasures are like poppies spread, 
 You seize the flower, its bloom is shed ! 
 Or like the snow-fall in the river, 
 A moment white — then melts for ever ; 
 Or like the borealis race, 
 That flit ere you can point their place ; 
 Or like the rainbow's lovely form 
 Evanishing amid the storm. 
 
 Nae man can tether time or tide ; 
 The hour approaches Tam maun ride ; 
 That hour, o' night's black arch the keystane, 
 That dreary hour he mounts his beast in ; 
 And sic a night he tak's the road in, 
 As ne'er poor sinner was abroad in. 
 The wind blew as 'twad blawn its last ; 
 The rattlin' showers rose on the blast : 
 The speedy gleams the darkness swallowed ; 
 Loud, deep, and lang the thunder bellowed ; 
 That night, a child might understand, 
 The De'il had business on his hand. 
 
 Weel mounted on his grey mare, Meg, 
 
 (A better never lifted leg,) 
 
 Tam skelpit on through dub and mire. 
 
 Despising wind, and rain, and fire ; 
 
 Whiles holding fast his guid blue bonnet ; 
 
 Whiles crooning o'er some auld Scots sonnet ; 
 
 Whiles glow'ring round wi' prudent cares, 
 
 Lest bogles catch him unawares ; 
 
 Kirk-Alloway was drawing nigh, 
 
 Whare ghaists and houlets nightly cry. 
 
 By this time he was cross the ford, 
 Whare in the snaw the chapman smoored ; 
 
 lOI
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 And past the birks and meikle stane, 
 Whare drunken Charlie brak's neck-bane ; 
 And through the whins, and by the cairn, 
 Whare hunters fand the murdered bairn ; 
 And near the thorn, aboon the well, 
 Whare Mungo's mither hanged hersel'. 
 Before him Doon pours all his floods ; 
 The doubling storm roars through the woods ! 
 The lightnings flash from pole to pole ; 
 Near and more near the thunders roll ; 
 When, glimmering through the groaning trees, 
 Kirk-Alloway seemed in a bleeze ; 
 Through ilka bore the beams were glancing ; 
 And loud resounded mirth and dancing. 
 
 Inspiring, bold John Barleycorn ! 
 
 What dangers thou canst mak' us scorn ! 
 
 Wi' tippenny we fear nae evil ; 
 
 Wi' usquabae we'll face the Devil ! 
 
 The swats sae reamed in Tammie's noddle, 
 
 Fair play, he cared na de'ils a boddle. 
 
 But Maggie stood right sair astonished, 
 
 Till, by the heel and hand admonished, 
 
 She ventured forward on the light ; 
 
 And, wow ! Tarn saw an unco sight ! 
 
 Warlocks and witches in a dance ; 
 
 Nae cotillon brent new frae France, 
 
 But hornpipes, jigs, strathspeys, and reels, 
 
 Put life and mettle in their heels. 
 
 At winnock-bunker in the east, 
 
 There sat Auld Nick, in shape o' beast ; 
 
 A towzie tyke, black, grim, and large, 
 
 To gi'e them music was his charge : 
 
 He screwed the pipes and gart them skirl. 
 
 Till roof and rafters a' did dirl ! 
 
 102
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 Coffins stood round, like open presses, 
 That shawed the dead in their last dresses; 
 And by some devilish cantrip sleight, 
 Each in its cauld hand held a light, 
 By which heroic Tarn was able 
 To note upon the haly table, 
 A murderer's banes in gibbet aims ; 
 Twa span-lang, wee unchristened bairns ; 
 A thief new-cutted frae a rape, 
 Wi' his last gasp his gab did gape : 
 Five tomahawks, wi' bluid red-rusted ; 
 Five scimitars wi' murder crusted ; 
 A garter, which a babe had strangled ; 
 A knife, a father's throat had mangled, 
 Whom his ain son o' life bereft. 
 The grey hairs yet stack to the heft ; 
 Wi' mair o' horrible and awfu'. 
 Which ev'n to name wad be unlawfu'. 
 
 As Tammie glowred, amazed and curious, 
 
 The mirth and fun grew fast and furious : 
 
 The piper loud and louder blew ; 
 
 The dancers quick and quicker flew ; 
 
 They reeled, they set, they crossed, they cleekit, 
 
 Till ilka carlin swat and reekit. 
 
 And coost her duddies to the wark. 
 
 And linket at it in her sark ! 
 
 Now Tam, O Tam ! had they been queans 
 A' plump and strapping, in their teens ; 
 Their sarks, instead o' creeshie fiannen. 
 Been snaw-white seventeen hunder linen ; 
 Thir breeks o' mine, my only pair. 
 That ance were plush, o' guid blue hair, 
 I wad hae gi'en them off my hurdles, 
 For ane blink o' the bonnie burdies ! 
 
 103
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 But withered beldams old and droll, 
 Rigwoodie hags wad spean a foal, 
 Lowping and flinging on a crummock, 
 I wonder didna turn thy stomach. 
 
 But Tarn kenned what was what fu' brawlie : 
 '* There was ae winsome wench and walie," 
 That night enlisted in the core, 
 (Lang after kenned on Carrick shore ! 
 For mony a beast to dead she shot. 
 And perished mony a bonnie boat, 
 And shook baith meikle corn and bear, 
 And kept the country-side in fear,J 
 Her cutty sark, o' Paisley harn. 
 That while a lassie she had worn. 
 In longitude though sorely scanty, 
 It was her best, and she was vauntie. 
 Ah I little kenned thy reverend grannie, 
 That sark she coft for her wee Nannie, 
 Wi' twa pund Scots ('twas a' her riches,) 
 Wad ever graced a dance of witches ! 
 
 But here my muse her wing maun cour ; 
 Sic flights are far beyond her power : 
 To sing how Nannie lap and flang, 
 (A souple jade she was and Strang,) 
 And how Tarn stood, like ane bewitched. 
 And thought his very een enriched ; 
 Even Satan glowred, and fidged fu' fain. 
 And hotched and blew wi' might and main ; 
 Till first ae caper, syne anither, 
 Tam tint his reason a'thegither. 
 And roars out, " Weel done, Cutty-sark ! " 
 And in an instant all was dark : 
 And scarcely had he Maggie rallied, 
 When out the hellish legion sallied. 
 104
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 As bees bizz out wi' angry fyke, 
 
 When plundering herds assail their byke ; 
 
 As open pussie's mortal foes 
 
 When, pop 1 she starts before their nose ; 
 
 As eager runs the market-crowd, 
 
 When " Catch the thief ! " resounds aloud ; 
 
 So Maggie runs, the witches follow, 
 
 Wi' mony an eldritch screech and hollow. 
 
 Ah, Tarn 1 ah, Tam ! thou 'II get thy fairin' ! 
 
 In hell they'll roast thee like a herrin' ! 
 
 In vain thy Kate awaits thy comin' ! 
 
 Kate soon will be a woefu' woman ! 
 
 Now, do thy speedy utmost, Meg, 
 
 And win the key-stane of the brig ; 
 
 There at them thou thy tail may toss, 
 
 A running stream they dare na cross. 
 
 But ere the key-stane she could make, 
 
 The fient a tail she had to shake 1 
 
 For Nannie, far before the rest, 
 Hard upon noble Maggie prest. 
 And flew at Tam wi' furious ettle ; 
 But little wist she Maggie's mettle — 
 Ae spring brought off her master hale, 
 But left behind her ain grey tail : 
 The carlin claught her by the rump. 
 And left poor Maggie scarce a stump ! 
 
 Now, wha this tale o' truth shall read. 
 Ilk man and mother's son, take heed : 
 Whene'er to drink you are inclined, 
 Or cutty-sarks run in your mind, 
 Think, ye may buy the joys o'er dear, 
 Remember Tam o' Shanter's mare. 
 
 105
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 A study of the letters which Burns wrote 
 from Ellisland alone will reveal much. The 
 extent of this correspondence, its scope of topic, 
 its variety of style, its extraordinary biographic 
 interest both as a record of mind and a revela- 
 tion of character, cannot be regarded as other 
 than astonishing ; and more especially is this 
 the case when it is considered as the output of a 
 man who to the workaday world around him 
 must have appeared as more Exciseman than 
 farmer and more farmer than poet. The mere 
 enumeration of his correspondents shows that 
 he had sounded the whole gamut of society from 
 low to high — from the jolly beggars at Poosie 
 Nansie's to the pedantic litterateurs of the 
 Edinburgh salons. With marvellous ability he 
 could adapt himself to the social status of the 
 recipients of his letters. He wrote to the nobility : 
 to my lord duke and the most noble earl ; to 
 the territorial magnate and the humblest 
 bonnet laird ; to men of religion, from the 
 Roman Catholic Bishop Geddes to the Calvinist 
 minister the Reverend John McMath ; to men 
 of learning, from Dugald Stewart, professor 
 in the University of Edinburgh, down to Mur- 
 doch, professor of the French language, alias 
 coaching drudge, in London ; to men of law — 
 Aiken, Hamilton, Ainslie, advocates, writers to 
 the Signet, or mere notaries public ; to men of 
 letters — Dr. Moore, the novelist, Drs. Blair and 
 Blacklock, poets and critics, Sillar and Lapraik, 
 poetasters ; and, above all, to women, ladies 
 old and young — the motherly Mrs. Dunlop, 
 1 06
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 the sensible Margaret Chalmers, the sentimental 
 Clarinda, my Lady Betty Cunningham, and my 
 Lady Winifred Maxwell Constance. All this, 
 of course, necessitated a multiplicity of subjects 
 and a multiplicity of manners, grave and gay, 
 coarse and refined, formal and familiar. The 
 variety of style in these letters has led to con- 
 flicting estimates regarding Burns 's prose, but 
 the balance of opinion has been to condemn it 
 as being highly artificial and as having all the 
 pomp and strut and fustian of eighteenth- 
 century polite learning. Undoubtedly the rant 
 of extravagant youth is not absent. Burns, be 
 it remembered, formed his prose style on a 
 collection of elegant letters by the wits of Queen 
 Anne's reign, and therefore during his appren- 
 ticeship employed the stilts of studied compo- 
 sition ; but later he walked firmly on his own 
 legs. His prose is certainly not the stock prose 
 of the eighteenth century. Even at its worst 
 it bears the stamp of his own powerful per- 
 sonality, and, for the biography of the poet, 
 it is even more valuable than his poetry. Burns 's 
 letters are intensely human documents : there 
 he has revealed his own frailties and the great 
 complexity of his character. It is by studying 
 them in the bulk that a sympathetic critic like 
 the late Auguste Angellier is enabled in his 
 great critical account of Burns ** to give to 
 things their immense complexity, their inex- 
 plicable confusion and their apparent contra- 
 dictions." 
 
 In November 1791 the poet, taking advantage 
 
 107
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 of a change in proprietorship to break his lease 
 and to sell off his effects, was enabled to leave 
 Ellisland. The sale was a particularly good 
 one and provided him with a money surplus 
 when all accounts were settled. Having been 
 promoted to a better post in the neighbouring 
 town of Dumfries, he removed to a house in 
 Bank Vennel there. His income was increased 
 by ;£20 per annum, and he also had a share 
 of the fines, seizures, &c., while his expenditure 
 was decreased through his not having to keep 
 a horse. His average income was thus brought 
 up to about £ioo a year, and in those days, 
 the purchasing power of money being greater 
 than it is now, it was possible to live comfort- 
 ably enough on that sum. Leaving Ellisland 
 was an important step for Burns. It marks his 
 determination to rely solely on the Excise for 
 the betterment of his worldly affairs. And as 
 things stood in 1791 there was every probability 
 of his gaining a supervisorship very shortly. 
 For a time nothing disturbed these good pros- 
 pects : even without political or social influence 
 Burns in course of time would have received 
 automatic promotion to a position which would 
 have placed him beyond financial worry. On 
 January 27, 1791, his name was listed as one 
 of those recommended for the post of examiner 
 and supervisor ; in April 1792 he obtained a 
 small promotion ; in 1794 he acted as tem- 
 porary supervisor. These appointments were 
 all in the usual course, and are quoted to show 
 that Burns's case was not so desperate as is 
 108
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 commonly made out. The poet himself was 
 of a free and generous nature with money, but 
 his wife was a prudent manager, and had 
 health remained with Burns all might have 
 been well. The death of his patron, the Earl 
 of Glencairn, may also have lessened his chances 
 of rapid promotion, but although the poet pays 
 him an extravagant tribute in the " Elegy on 
 Glencairn," that nobleman's patronage was 
 not, strictly speaking, required. 
 
 When Burns removed to Dumfries he began 
 to take an active part in the politics of the day, 
 and, his principles being commonly misunder- 
 stood, he brought upon himself much sorrow 
 thereby. It was the beginning of the Revolu- 
 tionary epoch in France, and to help the French 
 patriots was at first a popular proceeding. 
 Burns shared in that delight in the new prin- 
 ciples which was felt by all the ardent spirits — • 
 by Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey, to mention 
 only literary men. He bought for a trifling sum 
 four small pieces of ordnance, called carronades, 
 and forthwith dispatched them as a present 
 to the French Assembly. But the guns did not 
 reach Dover until some months afterwards, 
 and the relations between France and Britain 
 having become strained in the interim, the 
 export of this war material was prohibited. 
 Burns 's action was not officially regarded as 
 unpatriotic or treasonable, and no formal notice 
 of it was taken. Nevertheless he was privately 
 reprimanded by his superior, and some of the 
 ultra-loyalists of Dumfries began to regard him 
 
 109
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 as a traitor to his country. This suspicion 
 caused Burns much misery. Here it was Burns 's 
 temperament that was at fault. He had no 
 fixed party views, and detested politics and 
 politicians in the ordinary sense. With a senti- 
 mental attachment to the exiled Stewarts he 
 might be labelled Tory ; sharing the opinions 
 of Glencairn and Erskine, he wore the blue and 
 yellow colours of Fox, and might therefore be 
 called Whig. For a time, on the matter of the 
 Regency Bill, he was a Pittite, and as such 
 opposed to Fox ; yet on the king's recovery 
 he characterised the thanksgiving service as 
 ** a solemn farce of pageant mummery." As 
 late as 1789, writing to Mrs. Dunlop, he pro- 
 claimed himself a Jacobite. Then he became 
 a convert to the views of Tom Paine, whose 
 book " The Rights of Man " he presented to 
 the Dumfries Library. He was an advocate of 
 parliamentary reform, and wrote election ballads 
 favouring the side which supported it. In 
 December 1792 he wrote to Mrs. Dunlop saying 
 he would not commit himself openly to any 
 party, and for the sake of his family would 
 be very careful ; yet that same month he 
 implored Graham of Fintry to save him from 
 dismissal. In 1793, writing to the same gen- 
 tleman to clear himself of the charge of dis- 
 loyalty, he asserted that he was not a republican 
 but a constitutionalist, and that he detested 
 the action of the French Revolutionaries. Again, 
 when France threatened to invade Britain 
 Burns enrolled himself as a member of the 
 no
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 Dumfries Volunteers, raised in the general 
 scheme to defend the country, and his martial 
 songs did more to rouse the patriotic fervour 
 of his countrymen than all the eloquence of 
 Pitt and Dundas. Finally, in a letter to Erskine, 
 the famous advocate, he gave a reasoned 
 exposition of his political opinions, which is 
 simply an eloquent plea against corruption. 
 In his later years he definitely identified himself 
 with the Whigs, and it is apparent that he 
 hoped that they would carry the country. 
 In his last illness he wrote some remarkable 
 ballads for his side, and it is clear from 
 his letters that up to within a few weeks of 
 his death he was thinking how his official 
 promotion might be accelerated by political 
 intervention. 
 
 These apparent inconsistencies did not spring 
 from a lack of principle, but rather from a super- 
 fluity of it. Throughout it all Burns was abso- 
 lutely sincere ; he was intellectually honest ; 
 in spite of little personal prejudices he preserved 
 an open mind ; he was really above all party. 
 If he had been a selfish time-server he might 
 have joined the party of Dundas, the great 
 dispenser of patronage in Scotland ; had he 
 even stood aloof from politics he might have 
 received preferment through social influence 
 alone. But, conscious of his merits and with a 
 spirit too proud to stoop to sycophancy, he 
 was never able to conceal his convictions under 
 the mask of indifference, and therefore spoke 
 out on any particular question as his heart 
 
 III
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 prompted him. Sectarianism, the accentuation 
 of petty differences, he always detested. Class 
 distinctions were hateful to him. Infringement 
 of individual rights he narrowly scanned. His 
 attitude in these matters receives its best 
 expression in " A Man's a Man for a' that," 
 written in 1795. It is an attack, a wonderfully 
 trenchant, albeit poetic, attack on cant and 
 snobbery : a cry for real manliness ; an opti- 
 mistic clarion cry sounded from the heights of 
 hope. The doctrine and the aspiration alike 
 command acceptance. The very diction is of 
 wonderful terseness and simplicity. 
 
 A MAN'S A MAN FOR A' THAT 
 
 Is there, for honest poverty. 
 
 That hangs his head, and a' that ; 
 The coward-slave, we pass him by. 
 
 We dare be poor for a' that ! 
 For a' that, and a' that. 
 
 Our toil's obscure, and a' that ; 
 The rank is but the guinea's stamp, 
 
 The man's the gowd for a' that. 
 
 What though on hamely fare we dine. 
 
 Wear hoddin grey, and a' that ; 
 Gi'e fools their silks, and knaves their wine, 
 
 A man's a man for a' that ; 
 For a' that, and a' that, 
 
 Their tinsel show, and a' that ; 
 The honest man, though e'er sae poor, 
 
 Is king o' men for a' that. 
 Z12
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 Ye see yon birkie, ca'd a lord, 
 
 Wha struts, and stares, and a' that ; 
 Though hundreds worship at his word, 
 
 He's but a coof for a' that : 
 For a' that, and a' that. 
 
 His riband, star, and a' that : 
 The man of independent mind, 
 
 He looks and laughs at a' that. 
 
 A prince can mak' a belted knight, 
 
 A marquis, duke, and a' that ; 
 But an honest man's aboon his might — 
 
 Guid faith he mauna fa' that ! 
 For a' that, and a' that, 
 
 Their dignities, and a' that, 
 The pith o' sense and pride o' worth 
 
 Are higher ranks than a' that. 
 
 Then let us pray that come it may, 
 
 As come it will for a' that, 
 That sense and worth, o'er a' the earth. 
 
 May bear the gree, and a' that. 
 For a' that, and a' that. 
 
 It's coming yet, for a' that, 
 That man to man, the warld o'er, 
 
 Shall brothers be for a* that. 
 
 The idolaters of Burns would assert that 
 the teaching in " A Man's a Man for a' that " 
 marks a new departure in the conception of 
 individual liberty ; and within narrow limits 
 this may be so. But Leslie Stephen, in his 
 monumental review of English thought, has 
 shown beyond all cavil that for two or three 
 generations preceding Burns the same senti- 
 
 " 113
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 ments and the same general cry for freedom 
 were the leading features of English philosophic 
 writing ; and therefore Burns 's poetry really 
 stands at the end, and not at the beginning, of 
 a movement. Burns is nowhere a profound 
 thinker. He is not a pioneer. But he has keen 
 insight and a fine selective faculty which betrays 
 itself in the bare simplicity of his diction. His 
 greatest gift is a genius for expression. Thus 
 he gives to old dogma all the charm of novelty ; 
 and here he shows himself the pupil of Pope's 
 critical precepts ; he is the great exemplar of 
 " what oft was thought, but ne'er so well 
 exprest." Most of his longer poems followed 
 models, but these they as far surpass as the 
 plays of Shakespeare surpass the sources from 
 which they were taken. Even in his songs 
 there is the same tendency to build upon 
 another's foundation. Sometimes a stanza, 
 sometimes a line, sometimes only a name, shows 
 his indebtedness to the past. And a comparison 
 of Burns's songs with their originals at once 
 establishes the superiority of the Ayrshire 
 poet. 
 
 Lest all this should seem to detract from the 
 genius of Burns and to degrade him to a mere 
 man of talent, let the explanation be at once 
 set forth. Burns's later literary activity dis- 
 played itself in the collecting and arranging of 
 the old Scotch songs. In this he presents a 
 contrast to Sir Walter Scott, whose first labour 
 it was. Much of the old Scots minstrelsy owes 
 its preservation to these two great poets. Burns's 
 114
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 enthusiasm was such that if he heard a beggar 
 in the street singing an unfamiliar song he 
 would note the words and, if he could, the air. 
 His own contributions to Johnson's " Musical 
 Museum " have been already noticed. Shortly 
 before he left Ellisland he had entered into a 
 correspondence with Mr. George Thomson, of 
 Edinburgh, a collector and publisher of songs, 
 and now he exerted himself not only to make 
 that publication representative of Scottish song- 
 craft, but also to touch up and purify such old 
 airs as either from the artistic or from the moral 
 point of view stood in need of editorial treatment. 
 He could not suffer anything to leave his hands 
 which would tarnish the honour or poetic repu- 
 tation of his country. In sending his contribu- 
 tions to Thomson he often enclosed a mass of 
 song-lore and criticism many times the bulk 
 of the original manuscript, and no one who 
 reads these letters can fail to note the unselfish 
 spirit in which he sacrificed his time and his 
 own poetic gifts in order to make presentable 
 some old ballad or to preserve in a new setting 
 some happy phrase of the " auld makaris." 
 A slight idea of Burns's attitude towards the 
 undertaking may be gathered from his reply 
 to Thomson's first letter. The request ran thus : 
 " For the honour of Caledonia I would fain 
 hope the writer of ' The Cotter's Saturday Night ' 
 may be induced to take up the pen. If so, we 
 shall be able to present the public with a collec- 
 tion infinitely more interesting than any that 
 has yet appeared." Burns replied : "As the 
 
 "5
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 request you make me will positively add to my 
 enjoyments in complying with it, I shall enter 
 into your undertaking with all the small pro- 
 portion of abilities I have, strained to their 
 utmost by the impulse of enthusiasm. Only 
 don't hurry me. ... In the honest enthusiasm 
 with which I embark on your undertaking, to 
 talk of money, wages, fee, hire, &c., would be 
 downright prostitution of soul. A proof of 
 each of the songs that I shall compose or amend 
 I shall receive as a favour. In the rustic phrase 
 of the season, * Gude speed the wark.' " 
 
 To this labour of love Burns devoted the best 
 of his poetic energies during a period of four 
 or five years, from about 1790 to his death. 
 The songs must not be regarded as in any sense 
 task-work, for the poet would not tie himself 
 down to work under contract. He was offered 
 a post on the staff of a London newspaper, 
 and refused it because he considered poetry as 
 too sacred to be trafficked in. Nevertheless 
 what he would not do himself he could freely 
 advise others to undertake : worldliness in 
 theory and unworldliness in practice is the 
 great contradiction in his life. He could never 
 write unless he were stirred to the depths of 
 his being. In him the lyrical impulse is at its 
 strongest, the personal note at its highest. 
 Just as Shakespeare — were it not for the 
 " Sonnets " — is the most impersonal of all 
 poets, so Burns represents the triumph of 
 pure personality, of the simple and the sensuous. 
 It is difficult to pluck the heart out of Shake- 
 n6
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 speare's mystery, everywhere the clues are 
 intangible and uncertain. With Burns it is 
 equally difficult, but from another cause ; the 
 clues are provokingly numerous and real. 
 Which of these many loose ends must be seized 
 upon to lead into the labyrinth of his character ? 
 One thread seems to run straight and true, but 
 then it winds and doubles, criss-crosses with 
 other threads, and finally loses itself in a 
 tangled skein which the best, the most dexterous 
 fingers in the world can only partially unravel. 
 Nevertheless up to a certain point the way is 
 always clear, the poet's life is everywhere 
 elucidated by his poetry. Everything he wrote 
 is based on personal experience and therefore 
 rings true. And this is so even where he shows 
 indebtedness to his predecessors. The whole 
 spirit of the past seems to enter into his nature ; 
 he becomes "saturate with its tradition, abso- 
 lute master of its emotions and effects." 
 
 Consider how his songs were produced. An 
 impressionable boy entering upon his teens, he 
 hears a harvest lass singing in the field, and 
 composes a song in her honour to the selfsame 
 tune she sings. A country lad new come to 
 man's estate, his heart throbs out its ecstasy 
 of passion in the exquisite lyric dedicated to 
 the lovely Mary Morison. In a golden moment 
 he encounters a lovely, haughty lady of high 
 degree strolling in the woods of Ballochmyle, 
 and henceforth by his genius she is married to 
 immortal verse. Recognised as a poet of national 
 celebrity, he tours through the classic scenes of 
 
 117
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 his native land, and wherever his gaze rests in 
 approbation he transfigures and transmutes 
 that scene with divinest alchemy : the winding 
 Nith, Gala Water, the banks o' Doon, the birks 
 of Aberfeldy, Castle Gordon, become exquisite 
 and rare. He visits a battlefield, the wailing of 
 women is borne down upon him from afar, and 
 the lovely Lass o' Inverness rises in his fancy. 
 He rides through a tempest on a wild Galloway 
 moor, and while battling with the elements 
 imagines himself at Bannockburn ; he sees 
 the serried ranks of the Scots, how they stand 
 firm against the shock of English spears, and 
 then he raises the pasan of triumph, " Scots 
 wha hae." Lonely on his Nithsdale farm, his 
 mind reverts to the scenes of his former home, 
 and he breathes to the young wife he has left 
 in Ayrshire the tenderest and most delicate 
 of his love-lyrics, " I love my Jean." For- 
 gathering with his cronies, he is seized with the 
 spirit of conviviality, and in a flash bursts 
 forth with that swaggering Bacchanalian ditty, 
 " Willie brew'd a Peck o' Maut." Struck with 
 a chance phrase in a friend's letter, he overflows 
 with kindly emotion, and there wells up in him 
 a song of comfort and happy memories, " Auld 
 Lang Syne." Obsessed by his official duties, 
 and cursing the dilatoriness of his subordinate 
 sent to fetch the dragoons to aid in the capture 
 of a stranded smuggling craft, he loses his 
 anger in mirth and whiles away the time by 
 blaming the deil — a very pied piper of a deil — 
 in that humorous lilt, " The Deil's awa wi' the 
 ii8
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 Exciseman." A dear friend is about to depart 
 for the West Indies : he hastens to her, and 
 in the sorrow of parting there is distilled that 
 quintessence of emotion, " Ae Fond Kiss." 
 In his last sad years, pressed with the load of 
 life, he sees a lovely blue-eyed maiden, and at 
 once enrols himself a votary at the shrine of 
 beauty and celebrates the fair Chloris with songs 
 of platonic love. And, choose where you will, 
 so it is with all Burns's songs. A little spark 
 sets the tinder ablaze. 
 
 A RED, RED ROSE 
 
 O, my luve's like a red, red rose, 
 
 That's newly sprung in June : 
 0, my luve's like the melodie 
 
 That's sweetly played in tune- 
 As fair art thou, my bonnie lass, 
 
 So deep in luve am I ; 
 And I will luve thee still, my dear, 
 
 Till a' the seas gang dry. 
 
 Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear, 
 And the rocks melt wi' the sun ! 
 
 I will luve thee still, my dear. 
 While the sands o' life shall run. 
 
 And fare thee weel, my only luve ! 
 
 And fare thee weel a while ! 
 And I will come again, my luve, 
 
 Though it were ten thousand mile ! 
 
 119
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 AE FOND KISS 
 
 Ae fond kiss, and then we sever ; 
 Ae fareweel, and then, for ever ! 
 Deep in heart-wrung tears I'll pledge thee, 
 Warring sighs and groans I'll wage thee. 
 Who shall say that Fortune grieves him, 
 While the star of hope she leaves him ? 
 Me, nae cheerfu' twinkle lights me ; 
 Dark despair around benights me. 
 
 I'll ne'er blame my partial fancy, 
 Naething could resist my Nancy ; 
 But to see her was to love her ; 
 Love but her, and love for ever. 
 Had we never loved sae kindly. 
 Had we never loved sae blindly. 
 Never met — or never parted, 
 We had ne'er been broken-hearted. 
 
 Fare thee weel, thou first and fairest ! 
 Fare thee weel, thou best and dearest ! 
 Thine be ilka joy and treasure. 
 Peace, enjoyment, love, and pleasure ! 
 Ae fond kiss, and then we sever ; 
 Ae farewell, alas ! for ever ! 
 Deep in heart-wrung tears I'll pledge thee, 
 Warring sighs and groans I'll wage thee ! 
 
 WHEN I THINK ON THE HAPPY DAYS 
 
 When I think on the happy days 
 
 I spent wi' you, my dearie ; 
 And now what lands between us lie, 
 
 How can I be but eerie ! 
 
 120
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 How slow ye move, ye heavy hours, 
 
 As ye were wae and weary ! 
 It was na sae ye glinted by 
 
 When I was wi' my dearie. 
 
 O, WERT THOU IN THE CAULD BLAST 
 
 O, wert thou in the cauld blast 
 
 On yonder lea, on yonder lea, 
 My plaidie to the angry airt, 
 
 I'd shelter thee, I'd shelter thee ; 
 Or did misfortune's bitter storms 
 
 Around thee blaw, around thee blaw. 
 Thy bield should be my bosom, 
 
 To share it a', to share it a'. 
 
 Or were I in the wildest waste, 
 
 Sae bleak and bare, sae bleak and bare. 
 The desert were a paradise. 
 
 If thou wert there, if thou wert there : 
 Or were I monarch o' the globe, 
 
 Wi' thee to reign, wi' thee to reign, 
 The brightest jewel in my crown 
 
 Wad be my queen, wad be my queen. 
 
 In the autumn of 1795 the poet's health, 
 never very sound, finally broke down, but for 
 months he struggled on, attending to his official 
 duties and all the time growing weaker and 
 weaker. At last he was forced to give in. 
 Hoping to restore his health, he went to Brow, 
 a small watering-place on the Solway, for sea- 
 bathing. The change did not benefit him. The 
 probability of early death was now apparent, 
 and for months it certainly occupied much of 
 
 121
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 his thoughts. During these long months of 
 farewell he presents the melancholy spectacle 
 of a man, whose doom was sealed, being 
 denied the privilege of dying in peace. The war 
 with France had affected British commerce 
 and diminished credit everywhere. During his 
 later years in Dumfries the poet was occasionally 
 in financial straits, accounts were left standing 
 too long unpaid, and sometimes small sums of 
 money had to be borrowed. Nevertheless he 
 always managed to clear his feet, and was 
 perfectly solvent even during his illness and 
 residence at Brow. At his death his affairs 
 were quite in order, and on a balance showed 
 something on the credit side. Nevertheless his 
 breakdown in health caused a heavy drain on 
 his resources, and he had difficulty in at once 
 producing ready cash. As the weeks passed 
 and he kept nearing the ultimate goal, his fears 
 for his family so weighed upon him that he 
 could not always reason calmly. At last the 
 blow fell. A tailor began to demand payment 
 of £y 4s., the price of Burns's Volunteer uniform, 
 and, failing compliance, put the matter into the 
 hands of a lawyer, who wrote threatening a 
 process if the account was not met. In his 
 weak condition this letter threw the poet into 
 a perfect frenzy of fear. At the moment he 
 was unable to pay. All the horrors of the 
 debtors' prison loomed up in his imagination. 
 No doubt he remembered how the last hours of 
 his father's life had been embittered by the 
 same cause. Thoroughly alarmed, he at once 
 
 122
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 wrote two letters imploring financial aid. They 
 bear the same date. The one was to his cousin, 
 James Burnes, Montrose, and asked for £io ; 
 the other, to that Thomson to whom he had 
 been sending priceless songs, asked for £5. 
 The letter to Thomson will be read with pathetic 
 interest : " After all my boasted independence 
 curst necessity impels me to implore you for 
 five pounds. A cruel scoundrel of a haberdasher, 
 to whom I owe an account, taking it into his 
 head that I am dying, has commenced a process 
 and will infallibly put me into jail. Do, for 
 God's sake, send me that sum and that by 
 return of post. Forgive me this earnestness ; 
 but the horrors of a jail have made me half 
 distracted. I do not ask all this gratuitously ; 
 for, upon returning health, I hereby promise 
 and engage to furnish you with five pounds' 
 worth of the neatest song-genius you have 
 seen." Both sums were promptly sent, though 
 Thomson had first to borrow the money. The 
 bank draft from Montrose was not cashed, it 
 being afterwards found among the poet's 
 papers. 
 
 There is, happily, a brighter side to this 
 sombre picture. To the outer world Burns 
 presented a bold front, and no one seems to 
 have realised that the dying man was financially 
 embarrassed. He had only to appeal to be 
 answered ; but he was too proud to ask. He 
 preserved an heroic silence, he drew a curtain 
 over his miseries save where in his last letters 
 he involuntarily showed his anguish. Those 
 
 123
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 who saw him at Brow seem to have been 
 impressed with his manly fortitude. Mrs. 
 Riddel, an acquaintance whom he had not seen 
 for some time, met him there, and was anxious 
 to show him some kindly attention. Of her 
 interview with the bard she wrote the following 
 affecting account : "I was struck with his 
 appearance on entering the room. His first 
 salutation was, * Well, madam, have you any 
 commands for the other world ? ' He spoke 
 of his death without any of the ostentation of 
 philosophy, but with firmness as well as feeling, 
 as an event likely to happen very soon. . . . 
 His anxiety for his family seemed to hang 
 heavy upon him. ... He said he was well 
 aware his death would create some noise, and 
 that every scrap of his writing would be revived 
 against him to the injury of his future reputa- 
 tion. ... I had seldom seen his mind greater 
 or more collected." 
 
 On July 1 8, 1796, Burns returned to Dum- 
 fries to die. With difficulty he walked up the 
 small hill to his house. His wife, herself ill, 
 was unable to minister to him, and his first 
 act was to write to his father-in-law in Mauch- 
 line to send Mrs, Armour to nurse her daughter. 
 But friends of tried constancy tended him to 
 the last — ^kind Jessie Lewars, for whom he 
 wrote ** O, wert thou in the Cauld Blast " ; 
 Findlater, his supervisor in the Excise ; and 
 Dr. Maxwell, his political associate and fellow- 
 Volunteer. The news that the poet was dying 
 soon spread, and before the dread presence of 
 124
 
 BURNS & HIS POETRY 
 
 death all political and personal rancours dis- 
 appeared. Outside in the streets anxious groups 
 of citizens gathered, eager to know the latest 
 news of their illustrious countryman. They 
 were not long kept in suspense. On July 21 
 Burns was dead. It is sad to think that he 
 passed away muttering an execration against 
 the man who had threatened him with imprison- 
 ment. 
 
 After his death Dumfries paid fitting homage 
 
 to the genius of its great townsman. On the 
 
 evening of the 25th his remains were removed 
 
 to the town-hall, and on the following day 
 
 they were consigned to the earth with much 
 
 ceremony. His comrades of the Volunteers in 
 
 solemn parade rendered him all military 
 
 honours. Two regiments, one of horse and one 
 
 of foot, lined the streets. The whole body of 
 
 the citizens participated in the funeral rites. 
 
 At least ten thousand persons took part in the 
 
 obsequies. It was no more than his due. And 
 
 it was a visible manifestation of their belief 
 
 that one of the great ones of the earth had 
 
 passed away. But with this tribute, with the 
 
 pomp and parade and pageantry of woe, with 
 
 the respectful silence of the throng, the reader 
 
 cannot help contrasting the misrepresentation, 
 
 the slander of evil tongues, the cold indifference 
 
 of society, the petty malevolence of politics, 
 
 and those last bitter hours. 
 
 125
 
 GLOSSARY 
 
 Ae, one, only 
 
 AH, off 
 
 Agley, off the straight, askew 
 
 Aiblins, perhaps, possibly 
 
 Airt, direction 
 
 Ance, once 
 
 Aught, eight 
 
 Bear, barley 
 
 Beets, fans the flame 
 
 Bel3rve, by-and-by 
 
 Ben, the spence or parlour 
 
 Bickering, noisy 
 
 Bield, shelter 
 
 Billie, good fellow 
 
 Birks, birches 
 
 Blate, shamefaced 
 
 Bleeze, blaze 
 
 Blellum, idle, talking fellow 
 
 Blink, a look 
 
 Blinkin*, smirking 
 
 Boddle, a small coin worth 
 
 about a farthing 
 Bogles, ghosts 
 Bore, hole 
 Big, to build 
 Brae, hillside 
 Braid, broad 
 
 Braing't, plunged forward 
 Branks, bridle, a wooden 
 
 curb 
 Brattle, short race 
 Bree, juice, brew 
 Brent new, brand new 
 Burdies, damsels 
 Bure, bore 
 "Bure the gree," bore off 
 
 the prize 
 Buskit, dressed 
 But, without 
 Byke, beehive 
 
 126 
 
 Ca', call, drive " the plough " 
 
 Cannie, careful, soft, gentle 
 
 Cantrip, charm, spell 
 
 Carking, grinding, vexatious 
 
 Carlin, old woman 
 
 Cartes, cards 
 
 Chapman, pedlar 
 
 Chiels, young fellows 
 
 Chimla, chimney 
 
 Claes, clothes 
 
 Cleekit, linked themselves 
 
 Coft, bought 
 
 Coila, Kyles, a district of 
 Ayrshire 
 
 Coof, fool, ninny 
 
 Cookit, appeared and dis- 
 appeared in turn 
 
 Coost, cast, threw off 
 
 Core, corps 
 
 Coulter, ploughshare 
 
 Cour, to cower 
 
 Cozie, cosy 
 
 Crack, talk 
 
 Cranreuch, hoar frost 
 
 Creeshie, greasy 
 
 Croon, " gae a croon," made 
 a lowing sound 
 
 Crummock, staff with a 
 crooked head 
 
 Cutty, short, bobtailed 
 
 "Daimen ickerinathrave," 
 
 an odd ear of grain in 
 twenty-four sheaves of corn 
 Dight, wipe away 
 Dine, noon 
 
 Donsie, unlucky, bothersome 
 Dool, grief, sorrow, dole 
 Buddies, garments, rags 
 
 Eldritch, frightful
 
 GLOS S AR Y 
 
 Ettle, attempt 
 Eydent, diligent 
 
 Fairin', present, reward, de- 
 serts 
 
 Feg, pg 
 
 Fell, ptingent, "her weel- 
 hained kebbuck, fell" 
 
 Fient, none, not a particle of : 
 "the fient a pride," the 
 devil a bit of pride 
 
 Fiere, chum 
 
 Fit,/oot 
 
 Fittie-lan, the near horse of 
 the hindmost pair in the 
 plough 
 
 Flichterin', fluttering 
 
 Fliskit, fretted 
 
 Fyke, fuss 
 
 Fyle, to soil, to dirty 
 
 Gabs, tongues 
 Gar, to make 
 Gar't, made 
 Gaun, going 
 Gear, wealth, goods 
 Glowran, staring 
 Goavan, dazed 
 
 Ha' Bible, Hall Bible, so 
 called because it stood in 
 a nobleman's hall 
 
 Haffets, locks of hair 
 
 Hafflins, partly 
 
 Hag, hole in moss or moor 
 
 Hained, spared 
 
 Halesome, wholesome 
 
 Hallan, partition or wall in 
 cottage 
 
 Happer, hopper of a mill 
 
 Harn, yam 
 
 Hawkie, cow 
 
 Het, hut 
 
 Hilchin, halting, prancing 
 
 Histie, dry, barren 
 
 Hool, husk of grain, outer 
 
 skin 
 Houlet, owl 
 Hurdles, hips 
 
 Ilka, each, every 
 Ingle, fireplace 
 
 J auk, to trifle 
 
 Jaukin, trifling, dallying 
 
 Kail-runt, cabbage stalk 
 
 Kebbuck, cheese 
 
 Keek, look 
 
 Kennin, a very little, just as 
 
 much as can he perceived 
 Knowe, hillock 
 Kye, cows 
 
 Laith, loth 
 
 Laithfu', bashful 
 
 Lave, remainder, others 
 
 Lav'rocks, larks 
 
 Lift, sky 
 
 Lint, flax ; "in the bell," 
 
 in flower 
 "Loon, fellow 
 Lowe, flame 
 Lug, ear, to bring out 
 Lyart, grey, withered 
 
 Maun, must 
 Maut, malt 
 Melder, meal-grinding 
 Mirk, darkness 
 
 Naig, nag 
 Nappy, ale 
 Niffer, exchange 
 
 Outler, left out at night in 
 the field 
 
 127
 
 GLOS S ARY 
 
 Parritch, porridge 
 Pattle, stick 
 Penny-fee, wages 
 Pleugh, plough 
 Plumpit, plunged 
 Poortith, poverty 
 
 Quean, young woman 
 Quey, young cow 
 
 Rair, to roar 
 
 Raxin, reaching out, elastic- 
 
 naiured 
 Reekit, smoked, smoky 
 Rigwoodie, gallows worthy 
 Riskit, made a noise like the 
 
 tearing of roots 
 
 Sark, shirt 
 
 Shaw, a wood 
 
 Skellum, worthless fellow 
 
 Skelpin, walking smartly, 
 
 resounding 
 Slaps, gates, hedge openings 
 Slypet, " an slypet owre," 
 
 fallen smoothly over 
 Smoor'd, smothered 
 Snool, cringe 
 Soupe, milk 
 Souple, supple 
 Sowth, to hum or whistle in 
 
 a low tone 
 Spaviet, spavined 
 Spean, to wean 
 Speel, to climb 
 Spier, to ask 
 
 Splore, frolic, spree 
 Sprittie, rooty, full of sprits 
 
 {rushes) 
 Stacher, to walk unsteadily 
 Stibble, stubble 
 Stoure, dust, force of events 
 Stowp, mug or jug 
 Sugh, moan 
 Swat, sweated 
 Swats, new ale 
 
 Tent, to take heed, mark 
 Tentie, heedful 
 Thole, to suffer 
 Tint, lost 
 
 Tippenny, twopenny ale 
 Towmon, twelvemonth 
 
 Unco, strange, very 
 Uncos, adventures, news, out- 
 of -the -ordinary happenings 
 Usquebae, whisky 
 
 Wad, would, would have 
 
 Wale, choice 
 
 Wales, chooses 
 
 Walie, choice 
 
 Ware't, spend, use 
 
 Warlocks, evil spirits 
 
 Weet, wet, dew, rain 
 
 Wiel, eddy 
 
 Willyart, disordered 
 
 Wimplin*, waving, meander- 
 ing 
 
 Winnock-bunker, a window 
 seat
 
 « . - ■■'■'''l^Mnliliillliillllllllllllllil 
 
 AA 000 599 654