"It was, I
think," says Gilbert Burns, "in the winter of 1784, as we were going
with carts for coals to the family fire, and I could yet point out the
particular spot, that Robert first repeated to me the 'Address to the
Deil.
think," says Gilbert Burns, "in the winter of 1784, as we were going
with carts for coals to the family fire, and I could yet point out the
particular spot, that Robert first repeated to me the 'Address to the
Deil.
Robert Burns
The remembrance yet adds one pulse more to my poor
palpitating heart. Farewell! " A tremor pervaded his frame; his tongue
grew parched, and he was at times delirious: on the fourth day after
his return, when his attendant, James Maclure, held his medicine to
his lips, he swallowed it eagerly, rose almost wholly up, spread out
his hands, sprang forward nigh the whole length of the bed, fell on
his face, and expired. He died on the 21st of July, when nearly
thirty-seven years and seven months old.
The burial of Burns, on the 25th of July, was an impressive and
mournful scene: half the people of Nithsdale and the neighbouring
parts of Galloway had crowded into Dumfries, to see their poet
"mingled with the earth," and not a few had been permitted to look at
his body, laid out for interment. It was a calm and beautiful day, and
as the body was borne along the street towards the old kirk-yard, by
his brethren of the volunteers, not a sound was heard but the measured
step and the solemn music: there was no impatient crushing, no fierce
elbowing--the crowd which filled the street seemed conscious of what
they were now losing for ever. Even while this pageant was passing,
the widow of the poet was taken in labour; but the infant born in that
unhappy hour soon shared his father's grave. On reaching the northern
nook of the kirk-yard, where the grave was made, the mourners halted;
the coffin was divested of the mort-cloth, and silently lowered to its
resting-place, and as the first shovel-full of earth fell on the lid,
the volunteers, too agitated to be steady, justified the fears of the
poet, by three ragged volleys. He who now writes this very brief and
imperfect account, was present: he thought then, as he thinks now,
that all the military array of foot and horse did not harmonize with
either the genius or the fortunes of the poet, and that the tears
which he saw on many cheeks around, as the earth was replaced, were
worth all the splendour of a show which mocked with unintended mockery
the burial of the poor and neglected Burns. The body of the poet was,
on the 5th of June, 1815, removed to a more commodious spot in the
same burial-ground--his dark, and waving locks looked then fresh and
glossy--to afford room for a marble monument, which embodies, with
neither skill nor grace, that well-known passage in the dedication to
the gentlemen of the Caledonian Hunt:--"The poetic genius of my
country found me, as the prophetic bard, Elijah, did Elisha, at the
plough, and threw her inspiring mantle over me. " The dust of the bard
was again disturbed, when the body of Mrs. Burns was laid, in April,
1834, beside the remains of her husband: his skull was dug up by the
district craniologists, to satisfy their minds by measurement that he
was equal to the composition of "Tam o' Shanter," or "Mary in Heaven. "
This done, they placed the skull in a leaden box, "carefully lined
with the softest materials," and returned it, we hope for ever, to the
hallowed ground.
Thus lived and died Robert Burns, the chief of Scottish poets: in his
person he was tall and sinewy, and of such strength and activity, that
Scott alone, of all the poets I have seen, seemed his equal: his
forehead was broad, his hair black, with an inclination to curl, his
visage uncommonly swarthy, his eyes large, dark and lustrous, and his
voice deep and manly. His sensibility was strong, his passions full to
overflowing, and he loved, nay, adored, whatever was gentle and
beautiful. He had, when a lad at the plough, an eloquent word and an
inspired song for every fair face that smiled on him, and a sharp
sarcasm or a fierce lampoon for every rustic who thwarted or
contradicted him. As his first inspiration came from love, he
continued through life to love on, and was as ready with the lasting
incense of the muse for the ladies of Nithsdale as for the lasses of
Kyle: his earliest song was in praise of a young girl who reaped by
his side, when he was seventeen--his latest in honour of a lady by
whose side he had wandered and dreamed on the banks of the Devon. He
was of a nature proud and suspicious, and towards the close of his
life seemed disposed to regard all above him in rank as men who
unworthily possessed the patrimony of genius: he desired to see the
order of nature restored, and worth and talent in precedence of the
base or the dull. He had no medium in his hatred or his love; he never
spared the stupid, as if they were not to be endured because he was
bright; and on the heads of the innocent possessors of titles or
wealth he was ever ready to shower his lampoons. He loved to start
doubts in religion which he knew inspiration only could solve, and he
spoke of Calvinism with a latitude of language that grieved pious
listeners. He was warm-hearted and generous to a degree, above all
men, and scorned all that was selfish and mean with a scorn quite
romantic. He was a steadfast friend and a good neighbour: while he
lived at Ellisland few passed his door without being entertained at
his table; and even when in poverty, on the Millhole-brae, the poor
seldom left his door but with blessings on their lips.
Of his modes of study he has himself informed us, as well as of the
seasons and the places in which he loved to muse. He composed while he
strolled along the secluded banks of the Doon, the Ayr, or the Nith:
as the images crowded on his fancy his pace became quickened, and in
his highest moods he was excited even to tears. He loved the winter
for its leafless trees, its swelling floods, and its winds which swept
along the gloomy sky, with frost and snow on their wings: but he loved
the autumn more--he has neglected to say why--the muse was then more
liberal of her favours, and he composed with a happy alacrity unfelt
in all other seasons. He filled his mind and heart with the materials
of song--and retired from gazing on woman's beauty, and from the
excitement of her charms, to record his impressions in verse, as a
painter delineates oil his canvas the looks of those who sit to his
pencil. His chief place of study at Ellisland is still remembered: it
extends along the river-bank towards the Isle: there the neighbouring
gentry love to walk and peasants to gather, and hold it sacred, as the
place where he composed Tam O' Shanter. His favourite place of study
when residing in Dumfries, was the ruins of Lincluden College, made
classic by that sublime ode, "The Vision," and that level and clovery
sward contiguous to the College, on the northern side of the Nith: the
latter place was his favourite resort; it is known now by the name of
Burns's musing ground, and there he conceived many of his latter
lyrics. In case of interruption he completed the verses at the
fireside, where he swung to and fro in his arm-chair till the task was
done: he then submitted the song to the ordeal of his wife's voice,
which was both sweet and clear, and while she sung he listened
attentively, and altered or amended till the whole was in harmony,
music and words.
The genius of Burns is of a high order: in brightness of expression
and unsolicited ease and natural vehemence of language, he stands in
the first rank of poets: in choice of subjects, in happiness of
conception, and loftiness of imagination, he recedes into the second.
He owes little of his fame to his objects, for, saving the beauty of a
few ladies, they were all of an ordinary kind: he sought neither in
romance nor in history for themes to the muse; he took up topics from
life around which were familiar to all, and endowed them with
character, with passion, with tenderness, with humour--elevating all
that he touched into the regions of poetry and morals. He went to no
far lands for the purpose of surprising us with wonders, neither did
he go to crowns or coronets to attract the stare of the peasantry
around him, by things which to them were as a book shut and sealed:
"The Daisy" grew on the lands which he ploughed; "The Mouse" built her
frail nest on his own stubble-field; "The Haggis" reeked on his own
table; "The Scotch Drink" of which he sang was the produce of a
neighbouring still; "The Twa Dogs," which conversed so wisely and
wittily, were, one of them at least, his own collies; "The Vision" is
but a picture, and a brilliant one, of his own hopes and fears; "Tam
Samson" was a friend whom he loved; "Doctor Hornbook" a neighbouring
pedant; "Matthew Henderson" a social captain on half-pay; "The Scotch
Bard" who had gone to the West Indies was Burns himself; the heroine
of "The Lament" was Jean Armour; and "Tam O' Shanter" a facetious
farmer of Kyle, who rode late and loved pleasant company, nay, even
"The Deil" himself, whom he had the hardihood to address, was a being
whose eldrich croon bad alarmed the devout matrons of Kyle, and had
wandered, not unseen by the bard himself, among the lonely glens of
the Doon. Burns was one of the first to teach the world that high
moral poetry resided in the humblest subjects: whatever he touched
became elevated; his spirit possessed and inspired the commonest
topics, and endowed them with life and beauty.
His songs have all the beauties and but few of them the faults of his
poems: they flow to the music as readily as if both air and words came
into the world together. The sentiments are from nature, they are
rarely strained or forced, and the words dance in their places and
echo the music in its pastoral sweetness, social glee, or in the
tender and the moving. He seems always to write with woman's eye upon
him: he is gentle, persuasive and impassioned: he appears to watch her
looks, and pours out his praise or his complaint according to the
changeful moods of her mind. He looks on her, too, with a sculptor's
as well as a poet's eye: to him who works in marble, the diamonds,
emeralds, pearls, and elaborate ornaments of gold, but load and injure
the harmony of proportion, the grace of form, and divinity of
sentiment of his nymph or his goddess--so with Burns the fashion of a
lady's boddice, the lustre of her satins, or the sparkle of her
diamonds, or other finery with which wealth or taste has loaded her,
are neglected us idle frippery; while her beauty, her form, or her
mind, matters which are of nature and not of fashion, are remembered
and praised. He is none of the millinery bards, who deal in scented
silks, spider-net laces, rare gems, set in rarer workmanship, and who
shower diamonds and pearls by the bushel on a lady's locks: he makes
bright eyes, flushing cheeks, the magic of the tongue, and the
"pulses' maddening play" perform all. His songs are, in general,
pastoral pictures: he seldom finishes a portrait of female beauty
without enclosing it in a natural frame-work of waving woods, running
streams, the melody of birds, and the lights of heaven. Those who
desire to feel Burns in all his force, must seek some summer glen,
when a country girl searches among his many songs for one which
sympathizes with her own heart, and gives it full utterance, till wood
and vale is filled with the melody. It is remarkable that the most
naturally elegant and truly impassioned songs in our literature were
written by a ploughman in honour of the rustic lasses around him.
His poetry is all life and energy, and bears the impress of a warm
heart and a clear understanding: it abounds with passions and
opinions--vivid pictures of rural happiness and the raptures of
successful love, all fresh from nature and observation, and not as
they are seen through the spectacles of books. The wit of the clouted
shoe is there without its coarseness: there is a prodigality of humour
without licentiousness, a pathos ever natural and manly, a social joy
akin sometimes to sadness, a melancholy not unallied to mirth, and a
sublime morality which seeks to elevate and soothe. To a love of man
he added an affection for the flowers of the valley, the fowls of the
air, and the beasts of the field: he perceived the tie of social
sympathy which united animated with unanimated nature, and in many of
his finest poems most beautifully he has enforced it. His thoughts are
original and his style new and unborrowed: all that he has written is
distinguished by a happy carelessness, a bounding elasticity of
spirit, and a singular felicity of expression, simple yet inimitable;
he is familiar yet dignified, careless, yet correct, and concise, yet
clear and full. All this and much more is embodied in the language of
humble life--a dialect reckoned barbarous by scholars, but which,
coming from the lips of inspiration, becomes classic and elevated.
The prose of this great poet has much of the original merit of his
verse, but it is seldom so natural and so sustained: it abounds with
fine outflashings and with a genial warmth and vigour, but it is
defaced by false ornament and by a constant anxiety to say fine and
forcible things. He seems not to know that simplicity was as rare and
as needful a beauty in prose as in verse; he covets the pauses of
Sterne and the point and antithesis of Junius, like one who believes
that to write prose well he must be ever lively, ever pointed, and
ever smart. Yet the account which he wrote of himself to Dr. Moore is
one of the most spirited and natural narratives in the language, and
composed in a style remote from the strained and groped-for witticisms
and put-on sensibilities of many of his letters:--"Simple," as John
Wilson says, "we may well call it; rich in fancy, overflowing in
feeling, and dashed off in every other paragraph with the easy
boldness of a great master. "
PREFACE.
[The first edition, printed at Kilmarnock, July, 1786, by John Wilson,
bore on the title-page these simple words:--"Poems, chiefly in the
Scottish Dialect, by Robert Burns;" the following motto, marked
"Anonymous," but evidently the poet's own composition, was more
ambitious:--
"The simple Bard, unbroke by rules of art,
He pours the wild effusions of the heart:
And if inspired, 'tis nature's pow'rs inspire--
Hers all the melting thrill, and hers the kindling fire. "]
The following trifles are not the production of the Poet, who, with
all the advantages of learned art, and perhaps amid the elegancies and
idlenesses of upper life, looks down for a rural theme with an eye to
Theocritus or Virgil. To the author of this, these, and other
celebrated names their countrymen, are, at least in their original
language, _a fountain shut up, and a book sealed. _ Unacquainted with
the necessary requisites for commencing poet by rule, he sings the
sentiments and manners he felt and saw in himself and his rustic
compeers around him in his and their native language. Though a rhymer
from his earliest years, at least from the earliest impulse of the
softer passions, it was not till very lately that the applause,
perhaps the partiality, of friendship awakened his vanity so for as to
make him think anything of his worth showing: and none of the
following works were composed with a view to the press. To amuse
himself with the little creations of his own fancy, amid the toil and
fatigue of a laborious life; to transcribe the various feelings--the
loves, the griefs, the hopes, the fears--in his own breast; to find
some kind of counterpoise to the struggles of a world, always an alien
scene, a task uncouth to the poetical mind--these were his motives for
courting the Muses, and in these he found poetry to be its own reward.
Now that he appears in the public character of an author, he does it
with fear and trembling. So dear is fame to the rhyming tribe, that
even he, an obscure, nameless Bard, shrinks aghast at the thought of
being branded as--an impertinent blockhead, obtruding his nonsense on
the world; and, because he can make a shift to jingle a few doggerel
Scotch rhymes together, looking upon himself as a poet of no small
consequence, forsooth!
It is an observation of that celebrated poet, Shenstone, whose divine
elegies do honour to our language, our nation, and our species, that
"_Humility_ has depressed many a genius to a hermit, but never raised
one to fame! " If any critic catches at the word _genius_ the author
tells him, once for all, that he certainly looks upon himself as
possessed of some poetic abilities, otherwise his publishing in the
manner he has done would be a manoeuvre below the worst character,
which, he hopes, his worst enemy will ever give him. But to the genius
of a Ramsay, or the glorious dawnings of the poor, unfortunate
Fergusson, he, with equal unaffected sincerity, declares, that even in
his highest pulse of vanity, he has not the most distant pretensions.
These two justly admired Scotch poets he has often had in his eye in
the following pieces, but rather with a view to kindle at their flame,
than for servile imitation.
To his Subscriber, the Author returns his most sincere thanks. Not the
mercenary bow over a counter, but the heart-throbbing gratitude of the
Bard, conscious how much he owes to benevolence and friendship for
gratifying him, if he deserves it, in that dearest wish of every
poetic bosom--to be distinguished. He begs his readers, particularly
the learned and the polite, who may honour him with a perusal, that
they will make every allowance for education and circumstances of
life; but if, after a fair, candid, and impartial criticism, he shall
stand convicted of dulness and nonsense, let him be done by as he
would in that case do by others--let him be condemned, without mercy,
in contempt and oblivion.
THE
POETICAL WORKS
OF
ROBERT BURNS.
I.
WINTER.
A DIRGE.
[This is one of the earliest of the poet's recorded compositions: it
was written before the death of his father, and is called by Gilbert
Burns, 'a juvenile production. ' To walk by a river while flooded, or
through a wood on a rough winter day, and hear the storm howling among
the leafless trees, exalted the poet's thoughts. "In such a season,"
he said, "just after a train of misfortunes, I composed _Winter, a
Dirge. _"]
The wintry west extends his blast,
And hail and rain does blaw;
Or the stormy north sends driving forth
The blinding sleet and snaw;
While tumbling brown, the burn comes down,
And roars frae bank to brae;
And bird and beast in covert rest,
And pass the heartless day.
"The sweeping blast, the sky o'ercast,"[1]
The joyless winter day
Let others fear, to me more dear
Than all the pride of May:
The tempest's howl, it soothes my soul,
My griefs it seems to join;
The leafless trees my fancy please,
Their fate resembles mine!
Thou Power Supreme, whose mighty scheme
These woes of mine fulfil,
Here, firm, I rest, they must be best,
Because they are Thy will!
Then all I want (O, do thou grant
This one request of mine! )
Since to enjoy Thou dost deny,
Assist me to resign!
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: Dr. Young. ]
* * * * *
II.
THE
DEATH AND DYING WORDS
OF
POOR MAILIE,
THE AUTHOR'S ONLY PET YOWE.
AN UNCO MOURNFU' TALE.
[This tale is partly true; the poet's pet ewe got entangled in her
tether, and tumbled into a ditch; the face of ludicrous and awkward
sorrow with which this was related by Hughoc, the herd-boy, amused
Burns so much, who was on his way to the plough, that he immediately
composed the poem, and repeated it to his brother Gilbert when they
met in the evening; the field where the poet held the plough, and the
ditch into which poor Mailie fell, are still pointed out. ]
As Mailie, an' her lambs thegither,
Were ae day nibbling on the tether,
Upon her cloot she coost a hitch,
An' owre she warsl'd in the ditch:
There, groaning, dying, she did lie,
When Hughoc[2] he cam doytin by.
Wi' glowing e'en an' lifted han's,
Poor Hughoc like a statue stan's;
He saw her days were near-hand ended,
But, waes my heart! he could na mend it!
He gaped wide but naething spak--
At length poor Mailie silence brak.
"O thou, whose lamentable face
Appears to mourn my woefu' case!
My dying words attentive hear,
An' bear them to my master dear.
"Tell him, if e'er again he keep
As muckle gear as buy a sheep,
O bid him never tie them mair
Wi' wicked strings o' hemp or hair!
But ca' them out to park or hill,
An' let them wander at their will;
So may his flock increase, and grow
To scores o' lambs, an' packs of woo'!
"Tell him he was a master kin'
An' ay was gude to me an' mine;
An' now my dying charge I gie him,
My helpless lambs, I trust them wi' him.
"O, bid him save their harmless lives
Frae dogs, and tods, an' butchers' knives!
But gie them guid cow-milk their fill,
Till they be fit to fend themsel;
An' tent them duly, e'en an' morn,
Wi' teats o' hay, an' ripps o' corn.
"An' may they never learn the gaets
Of ither vile, wanrestfu' pets!
To sink thro' slaps, an' reave an' steal
At stacks o' pease, or stocks o' kail.
So may they, like their great forbears,
For monie a year come thro' the sheers;
So wives will gie them bits o' bread,
An' bairns greet for them when they're dead.
"My poor toop-lamb, my son an' heir,
O, bid him breed him up wi' care;
An' if he live to be a beast,
To pit some havins in his breast!
An' warn him what I winna name,
To stay content wi' yowes at hame
An' no to rin an' wear his cloots,
Like ither menseless, graceless brutes.
"An' niest my yowie, silly thing,
Gude keep thee frae a tether string!
O, may thou ne'er forgather up
Wi' ony blastit, moorland toop,
But ay keep mind to moop an' mell
Wi' sheep o' credit like thysel!
"And now, my bairns, wi' my last breath
I lea'e my blessin wi' you baith:
An' when you think upo' your mither,
Mind to be kind to ane anither.
"Now, honest Hughoc, dinna fail
To tell my master a' my tale;
An' bid him burn this cursed tether,
An', for thy pains, thou'se get my blather. "
This said, poor Mailie turn'd her head,
And clos'd her een amang the dead.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 2: A neibor herd-callan. ]
* * * * *
III.
POOR MAILIE'S ELEGY.
[Burns, when he calls on the bards of Ayr and Doon to join in the
lament for Mailie, intimates that he regards himself as a poet. Hogg
calls it a very elegant morsel: but says that it resembles too closely
"The Ewie and the Crooked Horn," to be admired as original: the
shepherd might have remembered that they both resemble Sempill's "Life
and death of the Piper of Kilbarchan. "]
Lament in rhyme, lament in prose,
Wi' saut tears trickling down your nose;
Our bardie's fate is at a close,
Past a' remead;
The last sad cape-stane of his woes;
Poor Mailie's dead.
It's no the loss o' warl's gear,
That could sae bitter draw the tear,
Or mak our bardie, dowie, wear
The mourning weed;
He's lost a friend and neebor dear,
In Mailie dead.
Thro' a' the toun she trotted by him;
A long half-mile she could descry him;
Wi' kindly bleat, when she did spy him,
She run wi' speed:
A friend mair faithfu' ne'er cam nigh him,
Than Mailie dead.
I wat she was a sheep o' sense,
An' could behave hersel wi' mense:
I'll say't, she never brak a fence,
Thro' thievish greed.
Our bardie, tamely, keeps the spence
Sin' Mailie's dead.
Or, if he wonders up the howe,
Her living image in her yowe
Comes bleating to him, owre the knowe,
For bits o' bread;
An' down the briny pearls rowe
For Mailie dead.
She was nae get o' moorland tips,[3]
Wi' tawted ket, an hairy hips;
For her forbears were brought in ships
Frae yont the Tweed:
A bonnier fleesh ne'er cross'd the clips
Than Mailie dead.
Wae worth the man wha first did shape
That vile, wanchancie thing--a rape!
It maks guid fellows girn an' gape,
Wi' chokin dread;
An' Robin's bonnet wave wi' crape,
For Mailie dead.
O, a' ye bards on bonnie Doon!
An' wha on Ayr your chanters tune!
Come, join the melancholious croon
O' Robin's reed!
His heart will never get aboon!
His Mailie's dead!
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 3: VARIATION.
'She was nae get o' runted rams,
Wi' woo' like goats an' legs like trams;
She was the flower o' Farlie lambs,
A famous breed!
Now Robin, greetin, chews the hams
O' Mailie dead. ']
* * * * *
IV.
FIRST EPISTLE TO DAVIE,
A BROTHER POET
[In the summer of 1781, Burns, while at work in the garden, repeated
this Epistle to his brother Gilbert, who was much pleased with the
performance, which he considered equal if not superior to some of
Allan Ramsay's Epistles, and said if it were printed he had no doubt
that it would be well received by people of taste. ]
--_January_, [1784. ]
I.
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 folks' gift,
That live sae bien an' snug:
I tent less and want less
Their roomy fire-side;
But hanker and canker
To see their cursed pride.
II.
It's hardly in a body's power
To keep, at times, frae being sour,
To see how things are shar'd;
How best o' chiels are whiles in want.
While coofs on countless thousands rant,
And ken na how to wair't;
But Davie, lad, ne'er fash your head,
Tho' we hae little gear,
We're fit to win our daily bread,
As lang's we're hale and fier:
"Muir spier na, nor fear na,"[4]
Auld age ne'er mind a feg,
The last o't, the warst o't,
Is only but to beg.
III.
To lie in kilns and barns at e'en
When banes are craz'd, and bluid is thin,
Is, doubtless, great distress!
Yet then content could make us blest;
Ev'n then, sometimes we'd snatch a taste
O' truest happiness.
The honest heart that's free frae a'
Intended fraud or guile,
However Fortune kick the ba',
Has ay 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 we can fa'.
IV.
What tho', 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 and sowth a tune;
Syne rhyme till't we'll time till't,
And sing't when we hae done.
V.
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 makin muckle mair;
It's no in books, it's no in lear,
To make us truly blest;
If happiness hae not her seat
And centre in the breast,
We may be wise, or rich, or great,
But never can be blest:
Nae treasures, nor pleasures,
Could make us happy lang;
The heart ay's the part ay
That makes us right or wrang.
VI.
Think ye, that sic as you and I,
Wha drudge and drive thro' 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!
Or else, neglecting a' that's guid,
They riot in excess!
Baith careless and fearless
Of either heaven or hell!
Esteeming and deeming
It's a' an idle tale!
VII.
Then let us cheerfu' acquiesce;
Nor make one 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 gie the wit of age to youth;
They let us ken oursel';
They make us see the naked truth,
The real guid and ill.
Tho' losses, and crosses,
Be lessons right severe,
There's wit there, ye'll get there,
Ye'll find nae other where.
VIII.
But tent me, Davie, ace o' hearts!
(To say aught less wad wrang the cartes,
And flatt'ry 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 hae 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!
IX.
O, all ye pow'rs who rule above!
O, Thou, whose very self art love!
Thou know'st my words sincere!
The life-blood streaming thro' 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,
O hear my fervent pray'r!
Still take her, and make her
Thy most peculiar care!
X.
All hail, ye tender feelings dear!
The smile of love, the friendly tear,
The sympathetic glow!
Long since, this world's thorny ways
Had number'd out my weary days,
Had it not been for you!
Fate still has blest me with a friend,
In every care and ill;
And oft a more endearing hand,
A tie more tender still.
It lightens, it brightens
The tenebrific scene,
To meet with, and greet with
My Davie or my Jean!
XI.
O, 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,
An' rin an unco fit:
But least then, the beast then
Should rue this hasty ride,
I'll light now, and dight now
His sweaty, wizen'd hide.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 4: Ramsay. ]
* * * * *
V.
SECOND EPISTLE TO DAVIE,
A BROTHER POET.
[David Sillar, to whom these epistles are addressed, was at that time
master of a country school, and was welcome to Burns both as a scholar
and a writer of verse. This epistle he prefixed to his poems printed
at Kilmarnock in the year 1789: he loved to speak of his early
comrade, and supplied Walker with some very valuable anecdotes: he
died one of the magistrates of Irvine, on the 2d of May, 1830, at the
age of seventy. ]
AULD NIBOR,
I'm three times doubly o'er your debtor,
For your auld-farrent, frien'ly letter;
Tho' I maun say't, I doubt ye flatter,
Ye speak sae fair.
For my puir, silly, rhymin clatter
Some less maun sair.
Hale be your heart, hale be your fiddle;
Lang may your elbuck jink and diddle,
To cheer you thro' the weary widdle
O' war'ly cares,
Till bairn's bairns kindly cuddle
Your auld, gray hairs.
But Davie, lad, I'm red ye're glaikit;
I'm tauld the Muse ye hae negleckit;
An' gif it's sae, ye sud be licket
Until yo fyke;
Sic hauns as you sud ne'er be faiket,
Be hain't who like.
For me, I'm on Parnassus' brink,
Rivin' the words to gar them clink;
Whyles daez't wi' love, whyles daez't wi' drink,
Wi' jads or masons;
An' whyles, but ay owre late, I think
Braw sober lessons.
Of a' the thoughtless sons o' man,
Commen' me to the Bardie clan;
Except it be some idle plan
O' rhymin' clink,
The devil-haet, that I sud ban,
They ever think.
Nae thought, nae view, nae scheme o' livin',
Nae cares to gie us joy or grievin';
But just the pouchie put the nieve in,
An' while ought's there,
Then hiltie skiltie, we gae scrievin',
An' fash nae mair.
Leeze me on rhyme! it's aye a treasure,
My chief, amaist my only pleasure,
At hame, a-fiel', at work, or leisure,
The Muse, poor hizzie!
Tho' rough an' raploch be her measure,
She's seldom lazy.
Haud to the Muse, my dainty Davie:
The warl' may play you monie a shavie;
But for the Muse she'll never leave ye,
Tho' e'er so puir,
Na, even tho' limpin' wi' the spavie
Frae door to door.
* * * * *
VI.
ADDRESS TO THE DEIL
"O Prince! O Chief of many throned Pow'rs,
That led th' embattled Seraphim to war. "
MILTON
[The beautiful and relenting spirit in which this fine poem finishes
moved the heart on one of the coldest of our critics.
"It was, I
think," says Gilbert Burns, "in the winter of 1784, as we were going
with carts for coals to the family fire, and I could yet point out the
particular spot, that Robert first repeated to me the 'Address to the
Deil. ' The idea of the address was suggested to him by running over in
his mind the many ludicrous accounts we have of that august
personage. "]
O thou! whatever title suit thee,
Auld Hornie, Satan, Kick, or Clootie,
Wha in yon cavern grim an' sootie,
Closed under hatches,
Spairges about the brunstane cootie,
To scaud poor wretches!
Hear me, auld Hangie, for a wee,
An' let poor damned bodies be;
I'm sure sma' pleasure it can gie,
E'en to a deil,
To skelp an' scaud poor dogs like me,
An' hear us squeel!
Great is thy pow'r, an' great thy fame;
Far kend an' noted is thy name;
An' tho' yon lowin heugh's thy hame,
Thou travels far;
An', faith! thou's neither lag nor lame,
Nor blate nor scaur.
Whyles, ranging like a roaring lion,
For prey, a' holes an' corners tryin;
Whyles, on the strong-winged tempest flyin,
Tirlin the kirks;
Whiles, in the human bosom pryin,
Unseen thou lurks.
I've heard my reverend Graunie say,
In lanely glens ye like to stray;
Or where auld-ruin'd castles, gray,
Nod to the moon,
Ye fright the nightly wand'rer's way
Wi' eldricht croon.
When twilight did my Graunie summon,
To say her prayers, douce, honest woman!
Aft yont the dyke she's heard you bummin,
Wi' eerie drone;
Or, rustlin, thro' the boortries comin,
Wi' heavy groan.
Ae dreary, windy, winter night,
The stars shot down wi' sklentin light,
Wi' you, mysel, I gat a fright
Ayont the lough;
Ye, like a rash-buss, stood in sight,
Wi' waving sough.
The cudgel in my nieve did shake.
Each bristl'd hair stood like a stake,
When wi' an eldritch, stoor quaick--quaick--
Amang the springs,
Awa ye squatter'd, like a drake,
On whistling wings.
Let warlocks grim, an' wither'd hags,
Tell how wi' you, on rag weed nags,
They skim the muirs an' dizzy crags
Wi' wicked speed;
And in kirk-yards renew their leagues
Owre howkit dead.
Thence countra wives, wi' toil an' pain,
May plunge an' plunge the kirn in vain:
For, oh! the yellow treasure's taen
By witching skill;
An' dawtit, twal-pint hawkie's gaen
As yell's the bill.
Thence mystic knots mak great abuse
On young guidmen, fond, keen, an' crouse;
When the best wark-lume i' the house
By cantrip wit,
Is instant made no worth a louse,
Just at the bit,
When thowes dissolve the snawy hoord,
An' float the jinglin icy-boord,
Then water-kelpies haunt the foord,
By your direction;
An' nighted trav'llers are allur'd
To their destruction.
An' aft your moss-traversing spunkies
Decoy the wight that late an' drunk is,
The bleezin, curst, mischievous monkeys
Delude his eyes,
Till in some miry slough he sunk is,
Ne'er mair to rise.
When masons' mystic word an' grip
In storms an' tempests raise you up,
Some cock or cat your rage maun stop,
Or, strange to tell!
The youngest brother ye wad whip
Aff straught to hell!
Lang syne, in Eden's bonie yard,
When youthfu' lovers first were pair'd,
An' all the soul of love they shar'd,
The raptur'd hour,
Sweet on the fragrant, flow'ry sward,
In shady bow'r:
Then you, ye auld, snick-drawing dog!
Ye came to Paradise incog.
An' play'd on man a cursed brogue,
(Black be your fa'! )
An' gied the infant world a shog,
'Maist ruin'd a'.
D'ye mind that day, when in a bizz,
Wi' reekit duds, an' reestit gizz,
Ye did present your smoutie phiz
'Mang better folk,
An' sklented on the man of Uzz
Your spitefu' joke?
An' how ye gat him i' your thrall,
An' brak him out o' house an' hall,
While scabs an' botches did him gall,
Wi' bitter claw,
An' lows'd his ill tongu'd, wicked scawl,
Was warst ava?
But a' your doings to rehearse,
Your wily snares an' fechtin fierce,
Sin' that day Michael did you pierce,
Down to this time,
Wad ding a' Lallan tongue, or Erse,
In prose or rhyme.
An' now, auld Cloots, I ken ye're thinkin,
A certain Bardie's rantin, drinkin,
Some luckless hour will send him linkin
To your black pit;
But, faith! he'll turn a corner jinkin,
An' cheat you yet.
But fare ye well, auld Nickie-ben!
O wad ye tak a thought an' men'!
Ye aiblins might--I dinna ken--
Still hae a stake--
I'm wae to think upo' yon den
Ev'n for your sake!
* * * * *
[Illustration: "AULD MARE MAGGIE. "]
VII.
THE AULD FARMER'S
NEW-YEAR MORNING SALUTATION TO HIS
AULD MARE MAGGIE,
ON GIVING HER THE ACCUSTOMED RIPP OF CORN TO HANSEL IN THE NEW YEAR
["Whenever Burns has occasion," says Hogg, "to address or mention any
subordinate being, however mean, even a mouse or a flower, then there
is a gentle pathos in it that awakens the finest feelings of the
heart. " The Auld Farmer of Kyle has the spirit of knight-errant, and
loves his mare according to the rules of chivalry; and well he might:
she carried him safely home from markets, triumphantly from
wedding-brooses; she ploughed the stiffest land; faced the steepest
brae, and, moreover, bore home his bonnie bride with a consciousness
of the loveliness of the load. ]
A guid New-year I wish thee, Maggie!
Hae, there's a rip to thy auld baggie:
Tho' thou's howe-backit, now, an' knaggie,
I've seen the day
Thou could hae gaen like onie staggie
Out-owre the lay.
Tho' now thou's dowie, stiff, an' crazy,
An' thy auld hide as white's a daisy,
I've seen thee dappl't, sleek, and glaizie,
A bonny gray:
He should been tight that daur't to raize thee,
Ance in a day.
Thou ance was i' the foremost rank,
A filly, buirdly, steeve, an' swank,
An set weel down a shapely shank,
As e'er tread yird;
An' could hae flown out-owre a stank,
Like ony bird.
It's now some nine-an'-twenty year,
Sin' thou was my guid-father's Meere;
He gied me thee, o' tocher clear,
An' fifty mark;
Tho' it was sma', 'twas weel-won gear,
An' thou was stark.
When first I gaed to woo my Jenny,
Ye then was trottin wi' your minnie:
Tho' ye was trickle, slee, an' funny,
Ye ne'er was donsie:
But hamely, tawie, quiet an' cannie,
An' unco sonsie.
That day ye pranc'd wi' muckle pride,
When ye bure hame my bonnie bride:
An' sweet an' gracefu' she did ride,
Wi' maiden air!
Kyle-Stewart I could bragged wide,
For sic a pair.
Tho' now ye dow but hoyte and hoble,
An' wintle like a saumont-coble,
That day, ye was a jinker noble,
For heels an' win'!
An' ran them till they a' did wauble,
Far, far, behin'!
When thou an' I were young an' skeigh,
An' stable-meals at fairs were dreigh,
How thou wad prance, an' snore, an' skreigh,
An' tak the road!
Town's bodies ran, an' stood abeigh,
An' ca't thee mad.
When thou was corn't, an' I was mellow,
We took the road ay like a swallow:
At Brooses thou had ne'er a fellow,
For pith an' speed;
But every tail thou pay't them hollow,
Where'er thou gaed.
The sma', droop-rumpl't, hunter cattle,
Might aiblins waur't thee for a brattle;
But sax Scotch miles thou try't their mettle,
An' gar't them whaizle:
Nae whip nor spur, but just a whattle
O' saugh or hazle.
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 braindg't, an' fetch't, an' fliskit,
But thy auld tail thou wad hae whiskit,
An' spread abreed thy weel-fill'd brisket,
Wi' pith an' pow'r,
'Till spiritty knowes wad rair't and risket,
An' slypet owre.
When frosts lay lang, an' snaws were deep,
An' threaten'd labour back to keep,
I gied thy cog a wee-bit heap
Aboon the timmer;
I ken'd my Maggie wad na sleep
For that, or simmer.
In cart or car thou never reestit;
The steyest brae thou wad hae fac't it;
Thou never lap, an' sten't, an' breastit,
Then stood to blaw;
But just thy step a wee thing hastit,
Thou snoov't awa.
My pleugh is now thy bairntime a';
Four gallant brutes as e'er did draw;
Forbye sax mae, I've sell't awa,
That thou hast nurst:
They drew me thretteen pund an' twa,
The vera worst.
Monie a sair daurk we twa hae wrought,
An, wi' the weary warl' fought!
An' monie an anxious day, I thought
We wad be beat!
Yet here to crazy age we're brought,
Wi' something yet.
And think na, my auld, trusty servan',
That now perhaps thou's less deservin,
An' thy auld days may end in starvin,
For my last fow,
A heapit stimpart, I'll reserve ane
Laid by for you.
We've worn to crazy years thegither;
We'll toyte about wi' ane anither;
Wi' tentie care I'll flit thy tether,
To some hain'd rig,
Whare ye may nobly rax your leather,
Wi' sma' fatigue.
* * * * *
VIII.
TO A HAGGIS.
[The vehement nationality of this poem is but a small part of its
merit. The haggis of the north is the minced pie of the south; both
are characteristic of the people: the ingredients which compose the
former are all of Scottish growth, including the bag which contains
them; the ingredients of the latter are gathered chiefly from the four
quarters of the globe: the haggis is the triumph of poverty, the
minced pie the triumph of wealth. ]
Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face,
Great chieftain o' the pudding-race!
Aboon them a' ye tak your place,
Painch, tripe, or thairm:
Weel are ye wordy o' a grace
As lang's my arm.
The groaning trencher there ye fill,
Your hurdies like a distant hill,
Your pin wad help to mend a mill
In time o' need,
While thro' your pores the dews distil
Like amber bead.
His knife see rustic-labour dight,
An' cut you up wi' ready slight,
Trenching your gushing entrails bright
Like onie ditch;
And then, O what a glorious sight,
Warm-reekin, rich!
Then horn for horn they stretch an' strive,
Deil tak the hindmost, on they drive,
'Till a' their weel-swall'd kytes belyve
Are bent like drums;
Then auld Guidman, maist like to rive,
Bethankit hums.
Is there that o'er his French ragout,
Or olio that wad staw a sow,
Or fricassee wad mak her spew
Wi' perfect sconner,
Looks down wi' sneering, scornfu' view
On sic a dinner?
Poor devil! see him owre his trash,
As feckless as a wither'd rash,
His spindle shank a guid whip-lash,
His nieve a nit;
Thro' bloody flood or field to dash,
O how unfit!
But mark the rustic, haggis-fed,
The trembling earth resounds his tread,
Clap in his walie nieve a blade,
He'll mak it whissle;
An' legs, an' arms, an' heads will sned,
Like taps o' thrissle.
Ye pow'rs wha mak mankind your care,
And dish them out their bill o' fare,
Auld Scotland wants nae stinking ware
That jaups in luggies;
But, if ye wish her gratefu' pray'r,
Gie her a Haggis!
* * * * *
IX.
A PRAYER,
UNDER THE PRESSURE OF VIOLENT ANGUISH.
["There was a certain period of my life," says Burns, "that my spirit
was broke by repeated losses and disasters, which threatened and
indeed effected the ruin of my fortune. My body, too, was attacked by
the most dreadful distemper, a hypochondria or confirmed melancholy.
In this wretched state, the recollection of which makes me yet
shudder, I hung my harp on the willow-trees, except in some lucid
intervals, in one of which I composed the following. "]
O Thou Great Being! what Thou art
Surpasses me to know;
Yet sure I am, that known to Thee
Are all Thy works below.
Thy creature here before Thee stands,
All wretched and distrest;
Yet sure those ills that wring my soul
Obey Thy high behest.
Sure Thou, Almighty, canst not act
From cruelty or wrath!
O, free my weary eyes from tears,
Or close them fast in death!
But if I must afflicted be,
To suit some wise design;
Then, man my soul with firm resolves
To bear and not repine!
* * * * *
X.
A PRAYER
IN THE PROSPECT OF DEATH.
[I have heard the third verse of this very moving Prayer quoted by
scrupulous men as a proof that the poet imputed his errors to the
Being who had endowed him with wild and unruly passions. The meaning
is very different: Burns felt the torrent-strength of passion
overpowering his resolution, and trusted that God would be merciful to
the errors of one on whom he had bestowed such o'ermastering gifts. ]
O Thou unknown, Almighty Cause
Of all my hope and fear?
In whose dread presence, ere an hour
Perhaps I must appear!
If I have wander'd in those paths
Of life I ought to shun;
As something, loudly, in my breast,
Remonstrates I have done;
Thou know'st that Thou hast formed me,
With passions wild and strong;
And list'ning to their witching voice
Has often led me wrong.
Where human weakness has come short,
Or frailty stept aside,
Do Thou, All-Good! for such thou art,
In shades of darkness hide.
Where with intention I have err'd,
No other plea I have,
But, Thou art good; and goodness still
Delighteth to forgive.
* * * * *
XI.
STANZAS
ON THE SAME OCCASION.
[These verses the poet, in his common-place book, calls "Misgivings in
the Hour of Despondency and Prospect of Death. " He elsewhere says they
were composed when fainting-fits and other alarming symptoms of a
pleurisy, or some other dangerous disorder, first put nature on the
alarm. ]
Why am I loth to leave this earthly scene?
How I so found it full of pleasing charms?
Some drops of joy with draughts of ill between:
Some gleams of sunshine 'mid renewing storms:
Is it departing pangs my soul alarms?
Or Death's unlovely, dreary, dark abode?
For guilt, for guilt, my terrors are in arms;
I tremble to approach an angry God,
And justly smart beneath his sin-avenging rod.
Fain would I say, "Forgive my foul offence! "
Fain promise never more to disobey;
But, should my Author health again dispense,
Again I might desert fair virtue's way:
Again in folly's path might go astray;
Again exalt the brute and sink the man;
Then how should I for heavenly mercy pray,
Who act so counter heavenly mercy's plan?
Who sin so oft have mourn'd, yet to temptation ran?
O Thou, great Governor of all below!
If I may dare a lifted eye to Thee,
Thy nod can make the tempest cease to blow,
Or still the tumult of the raging sea:
With that controlling pow'r assist ev'n me
Those headlong furious passions to confine;
For all unfit I feel my pow'rs to be,
To rule their torrent in th' allowed line;
O, aid me with Thy help, Omnipotence Divine!
* * * * *
XII.
A WINTER NIGHT.
"Poor naked wretches, wheresoe'er you are
That bide the pelting of the pitiless storm!
How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides,
Your looped and widow'd raggedness defend you
From seasons such as these? "
SHAKSPEARE.
["This poem," says my friend Thomas Carlyle, "is worth several
homilies on mercy, for it is the voice of Mercy herself. Burns,
indeed, lives in sympathy: his soul rushes forth into all the realms
of being: nothing that has existence can be indifferent to him. "]
When biting Boreas, fell and doure,
Sharp shivers thro' the leafless bow'r;
When Phoebus gies a short-liv'd glow'r
Far south the lift,
Dim-darkening through the flaky show'r,
Or whirling drift:
Ae night the storm the steeples rocked,
Poor labour sweet in sleep was locked,
While burns, wi' snawy wreeths up-choked,
Wild-eddying swirl.
Or through the mining outlet bocked,
Down headlong hurl.
Listening, the doors an' winnocks rattle,
I thought me on the ourie cattle,
Or silly sheep, wha bide this brattle
O' winter war,
And through the drift, deep-lairing sprattle
Beneath a scar.
Ilk happing bird, wee, helpless thing,
That, in the merry months o' spring,
Delighted me to hear thee sing,
What comes o' thee?
Whare wilt thou cower thy chittering wing,
An' close thy e'e?
Ev'n you on murd'ring errands toil'd,
Lone from your savage homes exiled,
The blood-stained roost, and sheep-cote spoiled
My heart forgets,
While pitiless the tempest wild
Sore on you beats.
Now Phoebe, in her midnight reign,
Dark muffled, viewed the dreary plain;
Still crowding thoughts, a pensive train,
Rose in my soul,
When on my ear this plaintive strain
Slow, solemn, stole:--
"Blow, blow, ye winds, with heavier gust!
And freeze, thou bitter-biting frost:
Descend, ye chilly, smothering snows!
Not all your rage, as now united, shows
More hard unkindness, unrelenting,
Vengeful malice unrepenting,
Than heaven-illumined man on brother man bestows;
See stern oppression's iron grip,
Or mad ambition's gory hand,
Sending, like blood-hounds from the slip,
Woe, want, and murder o'er a land!
Even in the peaceful rural vale,
Truth, weeping, tells the mournful tale,
How pamper'd luxury, flattery by her side,
The parasite empoisoning her ear.
With all the servile wretches in the rear,
Looks o'er proud property, extended wide;
And eyes the simple rustic hind,
Whose toil upholds the glittering show,
A creature of another kind,
Some coarser substance, unrefin'd,
Placed for her lordly use thus far, thus vile, below.
Where, where is love's fond, tender throe,
With lordly honour's lofty brow,
The powers you proudly own?
Is there, beneath love's noble name,
Can harbour, dark, the selfish aim,
To bless himself alone!
Mark maiden innocence a prey
To love-pretending snares,
This boasted honour turns away,
Shunning soft pity's rising sway,
Regardless of the tears and unavailing prayers!
Perhaps this hour, in misery's squalid nest,
She strains your infant to her joyless breast,
And with a mother's fears shrinks at the rocking blast!
Oh ye! who, sunk in beds of down,
Feel not a want but what yourselves create,
Think, for a moment, on his wretched fate,
Whom friends and fortune quite disown!
Ill satisfied keen nature's clamorous call,
Stretched on his straw he lays himself to sleep,
While through the ragged roof and chinky wall,
Chill o'er his slumbers piles the drifty heap!
Think on the dungeon's grim confine,
Where guilt and poor misfortune pine!
Guilt, erring man, relenting view!
But shall thy legal rage pursue
The wretch, already crushed low
By cruel fortune's undeserved blow?
Affliction's sons are brothers in distress,
A brother to relieve, how exquisite the bliss! "
I heard nae mair, for Chanticleer
Shook off the pouthery snaw,
And hailed the morning with a cheer--
A cottage-rousing craw!
But deep this truth impressed my mind--
Through all his works abroad,
The heart benevolent and kind
The most resembles GOD.
* * * * *
XIII.
REMORSE.
A FRAGMENT.
["I entirely agree," says Burns, "with the author of the _Theory of
Moral Sentiments_, that Remorse is the most painful sentiment that can
embitter the human bosom; an ordinary pitch of fortitude may bear up
admirably well, under those calamities, in the procurement of which we
ourselves have had no hand; but when our follies or crimes have made
us wretched, to bear all with manly firmness, and at the same time
have a proper penitential sense of our misconduct, is a glorious
effort of self-command. "]
Of all the numerous ills that hurt our peace,
That press the soul, or wring the mind with anguish,
Beyond comparison the worst are those
That to our folly or our guilt we owe.
In every other circumstance, the mind
Has this to say, 'It was no deed of mine;'
But when to all the evil of misfortune
This sting is added--'Blame thy foolish self! '
Or worser far, the pangs of keen remorse;
The torturing, gnawing consciousness of guilt,--
Of guilt, perhaps, where we've involved others;
The young, the innocent, who fondly lov'd us,
Nay, more, that very love their cause of ruin!
O burning hell! in all thy store of torments,
There's not a keener lash!
Lives there a man so firm, who, while his heart
Feels all the bitter horrors of his crime,
Can reason down its agonizing throbs;
And, after proper purpose of amendment,
Can firmly force his jarring thoughts to peace?
O, happy! happy! enviable man!
O glorious magnanimity of soul!
* * * * *
XIV.
THE JOLLY BEGGARS.
A CANTATA.
[This inimitable poem, unknown to Currie and unheardof while the poet
lived, was first given to the world, with other characteristic pieces,
by Mr. Stewart of Glasgow, in the year 1801. Some have surmised that
it is not the work of Burns; but the parentage is certain: the
original manuscript at the time of its composition, in 1785, was put
into the hands of Mr. Richmond of Mauchline, and afterwards given by
Burns himself to Mr. Woodburn, factor of the laird of Craigen-gillan;
the song of "For a' that, and a' that" was inserted by the poet, with
his name, in the _Musical Museum_ of February, 1790. Cromek admired,
yet did not, from overruling advice, print it in the _Reliques_, for
which he was sharply censured by Sir Walter Scott, in the _Quarterly
Review. _ The scene of the poem is in Mauchline, where Poosie Nancy had
her change-house. Only one copy in the handwriting of Burns is
supposed to exist; and of it a very accurate fac-simile has been
given. ]
RECITATIVO.
When lyart leaves bestrow the yird,
Or wavering like the bauckie-bird,
Bedim cauld Boreas' blast;
When hailstanes drive wi' bitter skyte
And infant frosts begin to bite,
In hoary cranreuch drest;
Ae night at e'en a merry core
O' randie, gangrel bodies,
In Poosie-Nansie's held the splore,
To drink their orra duddies:
Wi' quaffing and laughing,
They ranted an' they sang;
Wi' jumping and thumping,
The vera girdle rang.
First, neist the fire, in auld red rags,
Ane sat, weel brac'd wi' mealy bags,
And knapsack a' in order;
His doxy lay within his arm,
Wi' usquebae an' blankets warm--
She blinket on her sodger:
An' ay he gies the tozie drab
The tither skelpin' kiss,
While she held up her greedy gab
Just like an aumous dish.
Ilk smack still, did crack still,
Just like a cadger's whip,
Then staggering and swaggering
He roar'd this ditty up--
AIR.
Tune--"_Soldiers' Joy. _"
I am a son of Mars,
Who have been in many wars,
And show my cuts and scars
Wherever I come;
This here was for a wench,
And that other in a trench,
When welcoming the French
At the sound of the drum.
Lal de daudle, &c.
My 'prenticeship I past
Where my leader breath'd his last,
When the bloody die was cast
On the heights of Abram;
I served out my trade
When the gallant game was play'd,
And the Moro low was laid
At the sound of the drum.
Lal de daudle, &c.
I lastly was with Curtis,
Among the floating batt'ries,
And there I left for witness
An arm and a limb;
Yet let my country need me,
With Elliot to head me,
I'd clatter on my stumps
At the sound of a drum.
Lal de dandle, &c.
And now tho' I must beg,
With a wooden arm and leg,
And many a tatter'd rag
Hanging over my bum
I'm as happy with my wallet,
My bottle and my callet,
As when I used in scarlet
To follow a drum.
Lal de daudle, &c.
What tho' with hoary locks
I must stand the winter shocks,
Beneath the woods and rocks
Oftentimes for a home,
When the tother bag I sell,
And the tother bottle tell,
I could meet a troop of hell,
At the sound of a drum.
Lal de daudle, &c.
RECITATIVO.
He ended; and kebars sheuk
Aboon the chorus roar;
While frighted rattons backward leuk,
And seek the benmost bore;
A fairy fiddler frae the neuk,
He skirl'd out--encore!
But up arose the martial Chuck,
And laid the loud uproar.
AIR.
Tune--"_Soldier laddie. _"
I once was a maid, tho' I cannot tell when,
And still my delight is in proper young men;
Some one of a troop of dragoons was my daddie,
No wonder I'm fond of a sodger laddie.
Sing, Lal de dal, &c.
The first of my loves was a swaggering blade,
To rattle the thundering drum was his trade;
His leg was so tight, and his cheek was so ruddy,
Transported I was with my sodger laddie.
Sing, Lal de dal, &c.
But the godly old chaplain left him in the lurch,
The sword I forsook for the sake of the church;
He ventur'd the soul, and I risk'd the body,
'Twas then I prov'd false to my sodger laddie.
Sing, Lal de dal, &c.
Full soon I grew sick of my sanctified sot,
The regiment at large for a husband I got;
From the gilded spontoon to the fife I was ready,
I asked no more but a sodger laddie.
Sing, Lal de dal, &c.
But the peace it reduc'd me to beg in despair,
Till I met my old boy in a Cunningham fair;
His rags regimental they flutter'd so gaudy,
My heart is rejoic'd at my sodger laddie.
Sing, Lal de dal, &c.
And now I have liv'd--I know not how long,
And still I can join in a cup or a song;
But whilst with both hands I can hold the glass steady,
Here's to thee, my hero, my sodger laddie.
Sing, Lal de dal, &c.
RECITATIVO.
Poor Merry Andrew in the neuk,
Sat guzzling wi' a tinkler hizzie;
They mind't na wha the chorus teuk,
Between themselves they were sae busy:
At length wi' drink and courting dizzy
He stoitered up an' made a face;
Then turn'd, an' laid a smack on Grizzie,
Syne tun'd his pipes wi' grave grimace.
AIR.
palpitating heart. Farewell! " A tremor pervaded his frame; his tongue
grew parched, and he was at times delirious: on the fourth day after
his return, when his attendant, James Maclure, held his medicine to
his lips, he swallowed it eagerly, rose almost wholly up, spread out
his hands, sprang forward nigh the whole length of the bed, fell on
his face, and expired. He died on the 21st of July, when nearly
thirty-seven years and seven months old.
The burial of Burns, on the 25th of July, was an impressive and
mournful scene: half the people of Nithsdale and the neighbouring
parts of Galloway had crowded into Dumfries, to see their poet
"mingled with the earth," and not a few had been permitted to look at
his body, laid out for interment. It was a calm and beautiful day, and
as the body was borne along the street towards the old kirk-yard, by
his brethren of the volunteers, not a sound was heard but the measured
step and the solemn music: there was no impatient crushing, no fierce
elbowing--the crowd which filled the street seemed conscious of what
they were now losing for ever. Even while this pageant was passing,
the widow of the poet was taken in labour; but the infant born in that
unhappy hour soon shared his father's grave. On reaching the northern
nook of the kirk-yard, where the grave was made, the mourners halted;
the coffin was divested of the mort-cloth, and silently lowered to its
resting-place, and as the first shovel-full of earth fell on the lid,
the volunteers, too agitated to be steady, justified the fears of the
poet, by three ragged volleys. He who now writes this very brief and
imperfect account, was present: he thought then, as he thinks now,
that all the military array of foot and horse did not harmonize with
either the genius or the fortunes of the poet, and that the tears
which he saw on many cheeks around, as the earth was replaced, were
worth all the splendour of a show which mocked with unintended mockery
the burial of the poor and neglected Burns. The body of the poet was,
on the 5th of June, 1815, removed to a more commodious spot in the
same burial-ground--his dark, and waving locks looked then fresh and
glossy--to afford room for a marble monument, which embodies, with
neither skill nor grace, that well-known passage in the dedication to
the gentlemen of the Caledonian Hunt:--"The poetic genius of my
country found me, as the prophetic bard, Elijah, did Elisha, at the
plough, and threw her inspiring mantle over me. " The dust of the bard
was again disturbed, when the body of Mrs. Burns was laid, in April,
1834, beside the remains of her husband: his skull was dug up by the
district craniologists, to satisfy their minds by measurement that he
was equal to the composition of "Tam o' Shanter," or "Mary in Heaven. "
This done, they placed the skull in a leaden box, "carefully lined
with the softest materials," and returned it, we hope for ever, to the
hallowed ground.
Thus lived and died Robert Burns, the chief of Scottish poets: in his
person he was tall and sinewy, and of such strength and activity, that
Scott alone, of all the poets I have seen, seemed his equal: his
forehead was broad, his hair black, with an inclination to curl, his
visage uncommonly swarthy, his eyes large, dark and lustrous, and his
voice deep and manly. His sensibility was strong, his passions full to
overflowing, and he loved, nay, adored, whatever was gentle and
beautiful. He had, when a lad at the plough, an eloquent word and an
inspired song for every fair face that smiled on him, and a sharp
sarcasm or a fierce lampoon for every rustic who thwarted or
contradicted him. As his first inspiration came from love, he
continued through life to love on, and was as ready with the lasting
incense of the muse for the ladies of Nithsdale as for the lasses of
Kyle: his earliest song was in praise of a young girl who reaped by
his side, when he was seventeen--his latest in honour of a lady by
whose side he had wandered and dreamed on the banks of the Devon. He
was of a nature proud and suspicious, and towards the close of his
life seemed disposed to regard all above him in rank as men who
unworthily possessed the patrimony of genius: he desired to see the
order of nature restored, and worth and talent in precedence of the
base or the dull. He had no medium in his hatred or his love; he never
spared the stupid, as if they were not to be endured because he was
bright; and on the heads of the innocent possessors of titles or
wealth he was ever ready to shower his lampoons. He loved to start
doubts in religion which he knew inspiration only could solve, and he
spoke of Calvinism with a latitude of language that grieved pious
listeners. He was warm-hearted and generous to a degree, above all
men, and scorned all that was selfish and mean with a scorn quite
romantic. He was a steadfast friend and a good neighbour: while he
lived at Ellisland few passed his door without being entertained at
his table; and even when in poverty, on the Millhole-brae, the poor
seldom left his door but with blessings on their lips.
Of his modes of study he has himself informed us, as well as of the
seasons and the places in which he loved to muse. He composed while he
strolled along the secluded banks of the Doon, the Ayr, or the Nith:
as the images crowded on his fancy his pace became quickened, and in
his highest moods he was excited even to tears. He loved the winter
for its leafless trees, its swelling floods, and its winds which swept
along the gloomy sky, with frost and snow on their wings: but he loved
the autumn more--he has neglected to say why--the muse was then more
liberal of her favours, and he composed with a happy alacrity unfelt
in all other seasons. He filled his mind and heart with the materials
of song--and retired from gazing on woman's beauty, and from the
excitement of her charms, to record his impressions in verse, as a
painter delineates oil his canvas the looks of those who sit to his
pencil. His chief place of study at Ellisland is still remembered: it
extends along the river-bank towards the Isle: there the neighbouring
gentry love to walk and peasants to gather, and hold it sacred, as the
place where he composed Tam O' Shanter. His favourite place of study
when residing in Dumfries, was the ruins of Lincluden College, made
classic by that sublime ode, "The Vision," and that level and clovery
sward contiguous to the College, on the northern side of the Nith: the
latter place was his favourite resort; it is known now by the name of
Burns's musing ground, and there he conceived many of his latter
lyrics. In case of interruption he completed the verses at the
fireside, where he swung to and fro in his arm-chair till the task was
done: he then submitted the song to the ordeal of his wife's voice,
which was both sweet and clear, and while she sung he listened
attentively, and altered or amended till the whole was in harmony,
music and words.
The genius of Burns is of a high order: in brightness of expression
and unsolicited ease and natural vehemence of language, he stands in
the first rank of poets: in choice of subjects, in happiness of
conception, and loftiness of imagination, he recedes into the second.
He owes little of his fame to his objects, for, saving the beauty of a
few ladies, they were all of an ordinary kind: he sought neither in
romance nor in history for themes to the muse; he took up topics from
life around which were familiar to all, and endowed them with
character, with passion, with tenderness, with humour--elevating all
that he touched into the regions of poetry and morals. He went to no
far lands for the purpose of surprising us with wonders, neither did
he go to crowns or coronets to attract the stare of the peasantry
around him, by things which to them were as a book shut and sealed:
"The Daisy" grew on the lands which he ploughed; "The Mouse" built her
frail nest on his own stubble-field; "The Haggis" reeked on his own
table; "The Scotch Drink" of which he sang was the produce of a
neighbouring still; "The Twa Dogs," which conversed so wisely and
wittily, were, one of them at least, his own collies; "The Vision" is
but a picture, and a brilliant one, of his own hopes and fears; "Tam
Samson" was a friend whom he loved; "Doctor Hornbook" a neighbouring
pedant; "Matthew Henderson" a social captain on half-pay; "The Scotch
Bard" who had gone to the West Indies was Burns himself; the heroine
of "The Lament" was Jean Armour; and "Tam O' Shanter" a facetious
farmer of Kyle, who rode late and loved pleasant company, nay, even
"The Deil" himself, whom he had the hardihood to address, was a being
whose eldrich croon bad alarmed the devout matrons of Kyle, and had
wandered, not unseen by the bard himself, among the lonely glens of
the Doon. Burns was one of the first to teach the world that high
moral poetry resided in the humblest subjects: whatever he touched
became elevated; his spirit possessed and inspired the commonest
topics, and endowed them with life and beauty.
His songs have all the beauties and but few of them the faults of his
poems: they flow to the music as readily as if both air and words came
into the world together. The sentiments are from nature, they are
rarely strained or forced, and the words dance in their places and
echo the music in its pastoral sweetness, social glee, or in the
tender and the moving. He seems always to write with woman's eye upon
him: he is gentle, persuasive and impassioned: he appears to watch her
looks, and pours out his praise or his complaint according to the
changeful moods of her mind. He looks on her, too, with a sculptor's
as well as a poet's eye: to him who works in marble, the diamonds,
emeralds, pearls, and elaborate ornaments of gold, but load and injure
the harmony of proportion, the grace of form, and divinity of
sentiment of his nymph or his goddess--so with Burns the fashion of a
lady's boddice, the lustre of her satins, or the sparkle of her
diamonds, or other finery with which wealth or taste has loaded her,
are neglected us idle frippery; while her beauty, her form, or her
mind, matters which are of nature and not of fashion, are remembered
and praised. He is none of the millinery bards, who deal in scented
silks, spider-net laces, rare gems, set in rarer workmanship, and who
shower diamonds and pearls by the bushel on a lady's locks: he makes
bright eyes, flushing cheeks, the magic of the tongue, and the
"pulses' maddening play" perform all. His songs are, in general,
pastoral pictures: he seldom finishes a portrait of female beauty
without enclosing it in a natural frame-work of waving woods, running
streams, the melody of birds, and the lights of heaven. Those who
desire to feel Burns in all his force, must seek some summer glen,
when a country girl searches among his many songs for one which
sympathizes with her own heart, and gives it full utterance, till wood
and vale is filled with the melody. It is remarkable that the most
naturally elegant and truly impassioned songs in our literature were
written by a ploughman in honour of the rustic lasses around him.
His poetry is all life and energy, and bears the impress of a warm
heart and a clear understanding: it abounds with passions and
opinions--vivid pictures of rural happiness and the raptures of
successful love, all fresh from nature and observation, and not as
they are seen through the spectacles of books. The wit of the clouted
shoe is there without its coarseness: there is a prodigality of humour
without licentiousness, a pathos ever natural and manly, a social joy
akin sometimes to sadness, a melancholy not unallied to mirth, and a
sublime morality which seeks to elevate and soothe. To a love of man
he added an affection for the flowers of the valley, the fowls of the
air, and the beasts of the field: he perceived the tie of social
sympathy which united animated with unanimated nature, and in many of
his finest poems most beautifully he has enforced it. His thoughts are
original and his style new and unborrowed: all that he has written is
distinguished by a happy carelessness, a bounding elasticity of
spirit, and a singular felicity of expression, simple yet inimitable;
he is familiar yet dignified, careless, yet correct, and concise, yet
clear and full. All this and much more is embodied in the language of
humble life--a dialect reckoned barbarous by scholars, but which,
coming from the lips of inspiration, becomes classic and elevated.
The prose of this great poet has much of the original merit of his
verse, but it is seldom so natural and so sustained: it abounds with
fine outflashings and with a genial warmth and vigour, but it is
defaced by false ornament and by a constant anxiety to say fine and
forcible things. He seems not to know that simplicity was as rare and
as needful a beauty in prose as in verse; he covets the pauses of
Sterne and the point and antithesis of Junius, like one who believes
that to write prose well he must be ever lively, ever pointed, and
ever smart. Yet the account which he wrote of himself to Dr. Moore is
one of the most spirited and natural narratives in the language, and
composed in a style remote from the strained and groped-for witticisms
and put-on sensibilities of many of his letters:--"Simple," as John
Wilson says, "we may well call it; rich in fancy, overflowing in
feeling, and dashed off in every other paragraph with the easy
boldness of a great master. "
PREFACE.
[The first edition, printed at Kilmarnock, July, 1786, by John Wilson,
bore on the title-page these simple words:--"Poems, chiefly in the
Scottish Dialect, by Robert Burns;" the following motto, marked
"Anonymous," but evidently the poet's own composition, was more
ambitious:--
"The simple Bard, unbroke by rules of art,
He pours the wild effusions of the heart:
And if inspired, 'tis nature's pow'rs inspire--
Hers all the melting thrill, and hers the kindling fire. "]
The following trifles are not the production of the Poet, who, with
all the advantages of learned art, and perhaps amid the elegancies and
idlenesses of upper life, looks down for a rural theme with an eye to
Theocritus or Virgil. To the author of this, these, and other
celebrated names their countrymen, are, at least in their original
language, _a fountain shut up, and a book sealed. _ Unacquainted with
the necessary requisites for commencing poet by rule, he sings the
sentiments and manners he felt and saw in himself and his rustic
compeers around him in his and their native language. Though a rhymer
from his earliest years, at least from the earliest impulse of the
softer passions, it was not till very lately that the applause,
perhaps the partiality, of friendship awakened his vanity so for as to
make him think anything of his worth showing: and none of the
following works were composed with a view to the press. To amuse
himself with the little creations of his own fancy, amid the toil and
fatigue of a laborious life; to transcribe the various feelings--the
loves, the griefs, the hopes, the fears--in his own breast; to find
some kind of counterpoise to the struggles of a world, always an alien
scene, a task uncouth to the poetical mind--these were his motives for
courting the Muses, and in these he found poetry to be its own reward.
Now that he appears in the public character of an author, he does it
with fear and trembling. So dear is fame to the rhyming tribe, that
even he, an obscure, nameless Bard, shrinks aghast at the thought of
being branded as--an impertinent blockhead, obtruding his nonsense on
the world; and, because he can make a shift to jingle a few doggerel
Scotch rhymes together, looking upon himself as a poet of no small
consequence, forsooth!
It is an observation of that celebrated poet, Shenstone, whose divine
elegies do honour to our language, our nation, and our species, that
"_Humility_ has depressed many a genius to a hermit, but never raised
one to fame! " If any critic catches at the word _genius_ the author
tells him, once for all, that he certainly looks upon himself as
possessed of some poetic abilities, otherwise his publishing in the
manner he has done would be a manoeuvre below the worst character,
which, he hopes, his worst enemy will ever give him. But to the genius
of a Ramsay, or the glorious dawnings of the poor, unfortunate
Fergusson, he, with equal unaffected sincerity, declares, that even in
his highest pulse of vanity, he has not the most distant pretensions.
These two justly admired Scotch poets he has often had in his eye in
the following pieces, but rather with a view to kindle at their flame,
than for servile imitation.
To his Subscriber, the Author returns his most sincere thanks. Not the
mercenary bow over a counter, but the heart-throbbing gratitude of the
Bard, conscious how much he owes to benevolence and friendship for
gratifying him, if he deserves it, in that dearest wish of every
poetic bosom--to be distinguished. He begs his readers, particularly
the learned and the polite, who may honour him with a perusal, that
they will make every allowance for education and circumstances of
life; but if, after a fair, candid, and impartial criticism, he shall
stand convicted of dulness and nonsense, let him be done by as he
would in that case do by others--let him be condemned, without mercy,
in contempt and oblivion.
THE
POETICAL WORKS
OF
ROBERT BURNS.
I.
WINTER.
A DIRGE.
[This is one of the earliest of the poet's recorded compositions: it
was written before the death of his father, and is called by Gilbert
Burns, 'a juvenile production. ' To walk by a river while flooded, or
through a wood on a rough winter day, and hear the storm howling among
the leafless trees, exalted the poet's thoughts. "In such a season,"
he said, "just after a train of misfortunes, I composed _Winter, a
Dirge. _"]
The wintry west extends his blast,
And hail and rain does blaw;
Or the stormy north sends driving forth
The blinding sleet and snaw;
While tumbling brown, the burn comes down,
And roars frae bank to brae;
And bird and beast in covert rest,
And pass the heartless day.
"The sweeping blast, the sky o'ercast,"[1]
The joyless winter day
Let others fear, to me more dear
Than all the pride of May:
The tempest's howl, it soothes my soul,
My griefs it seems to join;
The leafless trees my fancy please,
Their fate resembles mine!
Thou Power Supreme, whose mighty scheme
These woes of mine fulfil,
Here, firm, I rest, they must be best,
Because they are Thy will!
Then all I want (O, do thou grant
This one request of mine! )
Since to enjoy Thou dost deny,
Assist me to resign!
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: Dr. Young. ]
* * * * *
II.
THE
DEATH AND DYING WORDS
OF
POOR MAILIE,
THE AUTHOR'S ONLY PET YOWE.
AN UNCO MOURNFU' TALE.
[This tale is partly true; the poet's pet ewe got entangled in her
tether, and tumbled into a ditch; the face of ludicrous and awkward
sorrow with which this was related by Hughoc, the herd-boy, amused
Burns so much, who was on his way to the plough, that he immediately
composed the poem, and repeated it to his brother Gilbert when they
met in the evening; the field where the poet held the plough, and the
ditch into which poor Mailie fell, are still pointed out. ]
As Mailie, an' her lambs thegither,
Were ae day nibbling on the tether,
Upon her cloot she coost a hitch,
An' owre she warsl'd in the ditch:
There, groaning, dying, she did lie,
When Hughoc[2] he cam doytin by.
Wi' glowing e'en an' lifted han's,
Poor Hughoc like a statue stan's;
He saw her days were near-hand ended,
But, waes my heart! he could na mend it!
He gaped wide but naething spak--
At length poor Mailie silence brak.
"O thou, whose lamentable face
Appears to mourn my woefu' case!
My dying words attentive hear,
An' bear them to my master dear.
"Tell him, if e'er again he keep
As muckle gear as buy a sheep,
O bid him never tie them mair
Wi' wicked strings o' hemp or hair!
But ca' them out to park or hill,
An' let them wander at their will;
So may his flock increase, and grow
To scores o' lambs, an' packs of woo'!
"Tell him he was a master kin'
An' ay was gude to me an' mine;
An' now my dying charge I gie him,
My helpless lambs, I trust them wi' him.
"O, bid him save their harmless lives
Frae dogs, and tods, an' butchers' knives!
But gie them guid cow-milk their fill,
Till they be fit to fend themsel;
An' tent them duly, e'en an' morn,
Wi' teats o' hay, an' ripps o' corn.
"An' may they never learn the gaets
Of ither vile, wanrestfu' pets!
To sink thro' slaps, an' reave an' steal
At stacks o' pease, or stocks o' kail.
So may they, like their great forbears,
For monie a year come thro' the sheers;
So wives will gie them bits o' bread,
An' bairns greet for them when they're dead.
"My poor toop-lamb, my son an' heir,
O, bid him breed him up wi' care;
An' if he live to be a beast,
To pit some havins in his breast!
An' warn him what I winna name,
To stay content wi' yowes at hame
An' no to rin an' wear his cloots,
Like ither menseless, graceless brutes.
"An' niest my yowie, silly thing,
Gude keep thee frae a tether string!
O, may thou ne'er forgather up
Wi' ony blastit, moorland toop,
But ay keep mind to moop an' mell
Wi' sheep o' credit like thysel!
"And now, my bairns, wi' my last breath
I lea'e my blessin wi' you baith:
An' when you think upo' your mither,
Mind to be kind to ane anither.
"Now, honest Hughoc, dinna fail
To tell my master a' my tale;
An' bid him burn this cursed tether,
An', for thy pains, thou'se get my blather. "
This said, poor Mailie turn'd her head,
And clos'd her een amang the dead.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 2: A neibor herd-callan. ]
* * * * *
III.
POOR MAILIE'S ELEGY.
[Burns, when he calls on the bards of Ayr and Doon to join in the
lament for Mailie, intimates that he regards himself as a poet. Hogg
calls it a very elegant morsel: but says that it resembles too closely
"The Ewie and the Crooked Horn," to be admired as original: the
shepherd might have remembered that they both resemble Sempill's "Life
and death of the Piper of Kilbarchan. "]
Lament in rhyme, lament in prose,
Wi' saut tears trickling down your nose;
Our bardie's fate is at a close,
Past a' remead;
The last sad cape-stane of his woes;
Poor Mailie's dead.
It's no the loss o' warl's gear,
That could sae bitter draw the tear,
Or mak our bardie, dowie, wear
The mourning weed;
He's lost a friend and neebor dear,
In Mailie dead.
Thro' a' the toun she trotted by him;
A long half-mile she could descry him;
Wi' kindly bleat, when she did spy him,
She run wi' speed:
A friend mair faithfu' ne'er cam nigh him,
Than Mailie dead.
I wat she was a sheep o' sense,
An' could behave hersel wi' mense:
I'll say't, she never brak a fence,
Thro' thievish greed.
Our bardie, tamely, keeps the spence
Sin' Mailie's dead.
Or, if he wonders up the howe,
Her living image in her yowe
Comes bleating to him, owre the knowe,
For bits o' bread;
An' down the briny pearls rowe
For Mailie dead.
She was nae get o' moorland tips,[3]
Wi' tawted ket, an hairy hips;
For her forbears were brought in ships
Frae yont the Tweed:
A bonnier fleesh ne'er cross'd the clips
Than Mailie dead.
Wae worth the man wha first did shape
That vile, wanchancie thing--a rape!
It maks guid fellows girn an' gape,
Wi' chokin dread;
An' Robin's bonnet wave wi' crape,
For Mailie dead.
O, a' ye bards on bonnie Doon!
An' wha on Ayr your chanters tune!
Come, join the melancholious croon
O' Robin's reed!
His heart will never get aboon!
His Mailie's dead!
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 3: VARIATION.
'She was nae get o' runted rams,
Wi' woo' like goats an' legs like trams;
She was the flower o' Farlie lambs,
A famous breed!
Now Robin, greetin, chews the hams
O' Mailie dead. ']
* * * * *
IV.
FIRST EPISTLE TO DAVIE,
A BROTHER POET
[In the summer of 1781, Burns, while at work in the garden, repeated
this Epistle to his brother Gilbert, who was much pleased with the
performance, which he considered equal if not superior to some of
Allan Ramsay's Epistles, and said if it were printed he had no doubt
that it would be well received by people of taste. ]
--_January_, [1784. ]
I.
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 folks' gift,
That live sae bien an' snug:
I tent less and want less
Their roomy fire-side;
But hanker and canker
To see their cursed pride.
II.
It's hardly in a body's power
To keep, at times, frae being sour,
To see how things are shar'd;
How best o' chiels are whiles in want.
While coofs on countless thousands rant,
And ken na how to wair't;
But Davie, lad, ne'er fash your head,
Tho' we hae little gear,
We're fit to win our daily bread,
As lang's we're hale and fier:
"Muir spier na, nor fear na,"[4]
Auld age ne'er mind a feg,
The last o't, the warst o't,
Is only but to beg.
III.
To lie in kilns and barns at e'en
When banes are craz'd, and bluid is thin,
Is, doubtless, great distress!
Yet then content could make us blest;
Ev'n then, sometimes we'd snatch a taste
O' truest happiness.
The honest heart that's free frae a'
Intended fraud or guile,
However Fortune kick the ba',
Has ay 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 we can fa'.
IV.
What tho', 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 and sowth a tune;
Syne rhyme till't we'll time till't,
And sing't when we hae done.
V.
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 makin muckle mair;
It's no in books, it's no in lear,
To make us truly blest;
If happiness hae not her seat
And centre in the breast,
We may be wise, or rich, or great,
But never can be blest:
Nae treasures, nor pleasures,
Could make us happy lang;
The heart ay's the part ay
That makes us right or wrang.
VI.
Think ye, that sic as you and I,
Wha drudge and drive thro' 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!
Or else, neglecting a' that's guid,
They riot in excess!
Baith careless and fearless
Of either heaven or hell!
Esteeming and deeming
It's a' an idle tale!
VII.
Then let us cheerfu' acquiesce;
Nor make one 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 gie the wit of age to youth;
They let us ken oursel';
They make us see the naked truth,
The real guid and ill.
Tho' losses, and crosses,
Be lessons right severe,
There's wit there, ye'll get there,
Ye'll find nae other where.
VIII.
But tent me, Davie, ace o' hearts!
(To say aught less wad wrang the cartes,
And flatt'ry 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 hae 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!
IX.
O, all ye pow'rs who rule above!
O, Thou, whose very self art love!
Thou know'st my words sincere!
The life-blood streaming thro' 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,
O hear my fervent pray'r!
Still take her, and make her
Thy most peculiar care!
X.
All hail, ye tender feelings dear!
The smile of love, the friendly tear,
The sympathetic glow!
Long since, this world's thorny ways
Had number'd out my weary days,
Had it not been for you!
Fate still has blest me with a friend,
In every care and ill;
And oft a more endearing hand,
A tie more tender still.
It lightens, it brightens
The tenebrific scene,
To meet with, and greet with
My Davie or my Jean!
XI.
O, 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,
An' rin an unco fit:
But least then, the beast then
Should rue this hasty ride,
I'll light now, and dight now
His sweaty, wizen'd hide.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 4: Ramsay. ]
* * * * *
V.
SECOND EPISTLE TO DAVIE,
A BROTHER POET.
[David Sillar, to whom these epistles are addressed, was at that time
master of a country school, and was welcome to Burns both as a scholar
and a writer of verse. This epistle he prefixed to his poems printed
at Kilmarnock in the year 1789: he loved to speak of his early
comrade, and supplied Walker with some very valuable anecdotes: he
died one of the magistrates of Irvine, on the 2d of May, 1830, at the
age of seventy. ]
AULD NIBOR,
I'm three times doubly o'er your debtor,
For your auld-farrent, frien'ly letter;
Tho' I maun say't, I doubt ye flatter,
Ye speak sae fair.
For my puir, silly, rhymin clatter
Some less maun sair.
Hale be your heart, hale be your fiddle;
Lang may your elbuck jink and diddle,
To cheer you thro' the weary widdle
O' war'ly cares,
Till bairn's bairns kindly cuddle
Your auld, gray hairs.
But Davie, lad, I'm red ye're glaikit;
I'm tauld the Muse ye hae negleckit;
An' gif it's sae, ye sud be licket
Until yo fyke;
Sic hauns as you sud ne'er be faiket,
Be hain't who like.
For me, I'm on Parnassus' brink,
Rivin' the words to gar them clink;
Whyles daez't wi' love, whyles daez't wi' drink,
Wi' jads or masons;
An' whyles, but ay owre late, I think
Braw sober lessons.
Of a' the thoughtless sons o' man,
Commen' me to the Bardie clan;
Except it be some idle plan
O' rhymin' clink,
The devil-haet, that I sud ban,
They ever think.
Nae thought, nae view, nae scheme o' livin',
Nae cares to gie us joy or grievin';
But just the pouchie put the nieve in,
An' while ought's there,
Then hiltie skiltie, we gae scrievin',
An' fash nae mair.
Leeze me on rhyme! it's aye a treasure,
My chief, amaist my only pleasure,
At hame, a-fiel', at work, or leisure,
The Muse, poor hizzie!
Tho' rough an' raploch be her measure,
She's seldom lazy.
Haud to the Muse, my dainty Davie:
The warl' may play you monie a shavie;
But for the Muse she'll never leave ye,
Tho' e'er so puir,
Na, even tho' limpin' wi' the spavie
Frae door to door.
* * * * *
VI.
ADDRESS TO THE DEIL
"O Prince! O Chief of many throned Pow'rs,
That led th' embattled Seraphim to war. "
MILTON
[The beautiful and relenting spirit in which this fine poem finishes
moved the heart on one of the coldest of our critics.
"It was, I
think," says Gilbert Burns, "in the winter of 1784, as we were going
with carts for coals to the family fire, and I could yet point out the
particular spot, that Robert first repeated to me the 'Address to the
Deil. ' The idea of the address was suggested to him by running over in
his mind the many ludicrous accounts we have of that august
personage. "]
O thou! whatever title suit thee,
Auld Hornie, Satan, Kick, or Clootie,
Wha in yon cavern grim an' sootie,
Closed under hatches,
Spairges about the brunstane cootie,
To scaud poor wretches!
Hear me, auld Hangie, for a wee,
An' let poor damned bodies be;
I'm sure sma' pleasure it can gie,
E'en to a deil,
To skelp an' scaud poor dogs like me,
An' hear us squeel!
Great is thy pow'r, an' great thy fame;
Far kend an' noted is thy name;
An' tho' yon lowin heugh's thy hame,
Thou travels far;
An', faith! thou's neither lag nor lame,
Nor blate nor scaur.
Whyles, ranging like a roaring lion,
For prey, a' holes an' corners tryin;
Whyles, on the strong-winged tempest flyin,
Tirlin the kirks;
Whiles, in the human bosom pryin,
Unseen thou lurks.
I've heard my reverend Graunie say,
In lanely glens ye like to stray;
Or where auld-ruin'd castles, gray,
Nod to the moon,
Ye fright the nightly wand'rer's way
Wi' eldricht croon.
When twilight did my Graunie summon,
To say her prayers, douce, honest woman!
Aft yont the dyke she's heard you bummin,
Wi' eerie drone;
Or, rustlin, thro' the boortries comin,
Wi' heavy groan.
Ae dreary, windy, winter night,
The stars shot down wi' sklentin light,
Wi' you, mysel, I gat a fright
Ayont the lough;
Ye, like a rash-buss, stood in sight,
Wi' waving sough.
The cudgel in my nieve did shake.
Each bristl'd hair stood like a stake,
When wi' an eldritch, stoor quaick--quaick--
Amang the springs,
Awa ye squatter'd, like a drake,
On whistling wings.
Let warlocks grim, an' wither'd hags,
Tell how wi' you, on rag weed nags,
They skim the muirs an' dizzy crags
Wi' wicked speed;
And in kirk-yards renew their leagues
Owre howkit dead.
Thence countra wives, wi' toil an' pain,
May plunge an' plunge the kirn in vain:
For, oh! the yellow treasure's taen
By witching skill;
An' dawtit, twal-pint hawkie's gaen
As yell's the bill.
Thence mystic knots mak great abuse
On young guidmen, fond, keen, an' crouse;
When the best wark-lume i' the house
By cantrip wit,
Is instant made no worth a louse,
Just at the bit,
When thowes dissolve the snawy hoord,
An' float the jinglin icy-boord,
Then water-kelpies haunt the foord,
By your direction;
An' nighted trav'llers are allur'd
To their destruction.
An' aft your moss-traversing spunkies
Decoy the wight that late an' drunk is,
The bleezin, curst, mischievous monkeys
Delude his eyes,
Till in some miry slough he sunk is,
Ne'er mair to rise.
When masons' mystic word an' grip
In storms an' tempests raise you up,
Some cock or cat your rage maun stop,
Or, strange to tell!
The youngest brother ye wad whip
Aff straught to hell!
Lang syne, in Eden's bonie yard,
When youthfu' lovers first were pair'd,
An' all the soul of love they shar'd,
The raptur'd hour,
Sweet on the fragrant, flow'ry sward,
In shady bow'r:
Then you, ye auld, snick-drawing dog!
Ye came to Paradise incog.
An' play'd on man a cursed brogue,
(Black be your fa'! )
An' gied the infant world a shog,
'Maist ruin'd a'.
D'ye mind that day, when in a bizz,
Wi' reekit duds, an' reestit gizz,
Ye did present your smoutie phiz
'Mang better folk,
An' sklented on the man of Uzz
Your spitefu' joke?
An' how ye gat him i' your thrall,
An' brak him out o' house an' hall,
While scabs an' botches did him gall,
Wi' bitter claw,
An' lows'd his ill tongu'd, wicked scawl,
Was warst ava?
But a' your doings to rehearse,
Your wily snares an' fechtin fierce,
Sin' that day Michael did you pierce,
Down to this time,
Wad ding a' Lallan tongue, or Erse,
In prose or rhyme.
An' now, auld Cloots, I ken ye're thinkin,
A certain Bardie's rantin, drinkin,
Some luckless hour will send him linkin
To your black pit;
But, faith! he'll turn a corner jinkin,
An' cheat you yet.
But fare ye well, auld Nickie-ben!
O wad ye tak a thought an' men'!
Ye aiblins might--I dinna ken--
Still hae a stake--
I'm wae to think upo' yon den
Ev'n for your sake!
* * * * *
[Illustration: "AULD MARE MAGGIE. "]
VII.
THE AULD FARMER'S
NEW-YEAR MORNING SALUTATION TO HIS
AULD MARE MAGGIE,
ON GIVING HER THE ACCUSTOMED RIPP OF CORN TO HANSEL IN THE NEW YEAR
["Whenever Burns has occasion," says Hogg, "to address or mention any
subordinate being, however mean, even a mouse or a flower, then there
is a gentle pathos in it that awakens the finest feelings of the
heart. " The Auld Farmer of Kyle has the spirit of knight-errant, and
loves his mare according to the rules of chivalry; and well he might:
she carried him safely home from markets, triumphantly from
wedding-brooses; she ploughed the stiffest land; faced the steepest
brae, and, moreover, bore home his bonnie bride with a consciousness
of the loveliness of the load. ]
A guid New-year I wish thee, Maggie!
Hae, there's a rip to thy auld baggie:
Tho' thou's howe-backit, now, an' knaggie,
I've seen the day
Thou could hae gaen like onie staggie
Out-owre the lay.
Tho' now thou's dowie, stiff, an' crazy,
An' thy auld hide as white's a daisy,
I've seen thee dappl't, sleek, and glaizie,
A bonny gray:
He should been tight that daur't to raize thee,
Ance in a day.
Thou ance was i' the foremost rank,
A filly, buirdly, steeve, an' swank,
An set weel down a shapely shank,
As e'er tread yird;
An' could hae flown out-owre a stank,
Like ony bird.
It's now some nine-an'-twenty year,
Sin' thou was my guid-father's Meere;
He gied me thee, o' tocher clear,
An' fifty mark;
Tho' it was sma', 'twas weel-won gear,
An' thou was stark.
When first I gaed to woo my Jenny,
Ye then was trottin wi' your minnie:
Tho' ye was trickle, slee, an' funny,
Ye ne'er was donsie:
But hamely, tawie, quiet an' cannie,
An' unco sonsie.
That day ye pranc'd wi' muckle pride,
When ye bure hame my bonnie bride:
An' sweet an' gracefu' she did ride,
Wi' maiden air!
Kyle-Stewart I could bragged wide,
For sic a pair.
Tho' now ye dow but hoyte and hoble,
An' wintle like a saumont-coble,
That day, ye was a jinker noble,
For heels an' win'!
An' ran them till they a' did wauble,
Far, far, behin'!
When thou an' I were young an' skeigh,
An' stable-meals at fairs were dreigh,
How thou wad prance, an' snore, an' skreigh,
An' tak the road!
Town's bodies ran, an' stood abeigh,
An' ca't thee mad.
When thou was corn't, an' I was mellow,
We took the road ay like a swallow:
At Brooses thou had ne'er a fellow,
For pith an' speed;
But every tail thou pay't them hollow,
Where'er thou gaed.
The sma', droop-rumpl't, hunter cattle,
Might aiblins waur't thee for a brattle;
But sax Scotch miles thou try't their mettle,
An' gar't them whaizle:
Nae whip nor spur, but just a whattle
O' saugh or hazle.
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 braindg't, an' fetch't, an' fliskit,
But thy auld tail thou wad hae whiskit,
An' spread abreed thy weel-fill'd brisket,
Wi' pith an' pow'r,
'Till spiritty knowes wad rair't and risket,
An' slypet owre.
When frosts lay lang, an' snaws were deep,
An' threaten'd labour back to keep,
I gied thy cog a wee-bit heap
Aboon the timmer;
I ken'd my Maggie wad na sleep
For that, or simmer.
In cart or car thou never reestit;
The steyest brae thou wad hae fac't it;
Thou never lap, an' sten't, an' breastit,
Then stood to blaw;
But just thy step a wee thing hastit,
Thou snoov't awa.
My pleugh is now thy bairntime a';
Four gallant brutes as e'er did draw;
Forbye sax mae, I've sell't awa,
That thou hast nurst:
They drew me thretteen pund an' twa,
The vera worst.
Monie a sair daurk we twa hae wrought,
An, wi' the weary warl' fought!
An' monie an anxious day, I thought
We wad be beat!
Yet here to crazy age we're brought,
Wi' something yet.
And think na, my auld, trusty servan',
That now perhaps thou's less deservin,
An' thy auld days may end in starvin,
For my last fow,
A heapit stimpart, I'll reserve ane
Laid by for you.
We've worn to crazy years thegither;
We'll toyte about wi' ane anither;
Wi' tentie care I'll flit thy tether,
To some hain'd rig,
Whare ye may nobly rax your leather,
Wi' sma' fatigue.
* * * * *
VIII.
TO A HAGGIS.
[The vehement nationality of this poem is but a small part of its
merit. The haggis of the north is the minced pie of the south; both
are characteristic of the people: the ingredients which compose the
former are all of Scottish growth, including the bag which contains
them; the ingredients of the latter are gathered chiefly from the four
quarters of the globe: the haggis is the triumph of poverty, the
minced pie the triumph of wealth. ]
Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face,
Great chieftain o' the pudding-race!
Aboon them a' ye tak your place,
Painch, tripe, or thairm:
Weel are ye wordy o' a grace
As lang's my arm.
The groaning trencher there ye fill,
Your hurdies like a distant hill,
Your pin wad help to mend a mill
In time o' need,
While thro' your pores the dews distil
Like amber bead.
His knife see rustic-labour dight,
An' cut you up wi' ready slight,
Trenching your gushing entrails bright
Like onie ditch;
And then, O what a glorious sight,
Warm-reekin, rich!
Then horn for horn they stretch an' strive,
Deil tak the hindmost, on they drive,
'Till a' their weel-swall'd kytes belyve
Are bent like drums;
Then auld Guidman, maist like to rive,
Bethankit hums.
Is there that o'er his French ragout,
Or olio that wad staw a sow,
Or fricassee wad mak her spew
Wi' perfect sconner,
Looks down wi' sneering, scornfu' view
On sic a dinner?
Poor devil! see him owre his trash,
As feckless as a wither'd rash,
His spindle shank a guid whip-lash,
His nieve a nit;
Thro' bloody flood or field to dash,
O how unfit!
But mark the rustic, haggis-fed,
The trembling earth resounds his tread,
Clap in his walie nieve a blade,
He'll mak it whissle;
An' legs, an' arms, an' heads will sned,
Like taps o' thrissle.
Ye pow'rs wha mak mankind your care,
And dish them out their bill o' fare,
Auld Scotland wants nae stinking ware
That jaups in luggies;
But, if ye wish her gratefu' pray'r,
Gie her a Haggis!
* * * * *
IX.
A PRAYER,
UNDER THE PRESSURE OF VIOLENT ANGUISH.
["There was a certain period of my life," says Burns, "that my spirit
was broke by repeated losses and disasters, which threatened and
indeed effected the ruin of my fortune. My body, too, was attacked by
the most dreadful distemper, a hypochondria or confirmed melancholy.
In this wretched state, the recollection of which makes me yet
shudder, I hung my harp on the willow-trees, except in some lucid
intervals, in one of which I composed the following. "]
O Thou Great Being! what Thou art
Surpasses me to know;
Yet sure I am, that known to Thee
Are all Thy works below.
Thy creature here before Thee stands,
All wretched and distrest;
Yet sure those ills that wring my soul
Obey Thy high behest.
Sure Thou, Almighty, canst not act
From cruelty or wrath!
O, free my weary eyes from tears,
Or close them fast in death!
But if I must afflicted be,
To suit some wise design;
Then, man my soul with firm resolves
To bear and not repine!
* * * * *
X.
A PRAYER
IN THE PROSPECT OF DEATH.
[I have heard the third verse of this very moving Prayer quoted by
scrupulous men as a proof that the poet imputed his errors to the
Being who had endowed him with wild and unruly passions. The meaning
is very different: Burns felt the torrent-strength of passion
overpowering his resolution, and trusted that God would be merciful to
the errors of one on whom he had bestowed such o'ermastering gifts. ]
O Thou unknown, Almighty Cause
Of all my hope and fear?
In whose dread presence, ere an hour
Perhaps I must appear!
If I have wander'd in those paths
Of life I ought to shun;
As something, loudly, in my breast,
Remonstrates I have done;
Thou know'st that Thou hast formed me,
With passions wild and strong;
And list'ning to their witching voice
Has often led me wrong.
Where human weakness has come short,
Or frailty stept aside,
Do Thou, All-Good! for such thou art,
In shades of darkness hide.
Where with intention I have err'd,
No other plea I have,
But, Thou art good; and goodness still
Delighteth to forgive.
* * * * *
XI.
STANZAS
ON THE SAME OCCASION.
[These verses the poet, in his common-place book, calls "Misgivings in
the Hour of Despondency and Prospect of Death. " He elsewhere says they
were composed when fainting-fits and other alarming symptoms of a
pleurisy, or some other dangerous disorder, first put nature on the
alarm. ]
Why am I loth to leave this earthly scene?
How I so found it full of pleasing charms?
Some drops of joy with draughts of ill between:
Some gleams of sunshine 'mid renewing storms:
Is it departing pangs my soul alarms?
Or Death's unlovely, dreary, dark abode?
For guilt, for guilt, my terrors are in arms;
I tremble to approach an angry God,
And justly smart beneath his sin-avenging rod.
Fain would I say, "Forgive my foul offence! "
Fain promise never more to disobey;
But, should my Author health again dispense,
Again I might desert fair virtue's way:
Again in folly's path might go astray;
Again exalt the brute and sink the man;
Then how should I for heavenly mercy pray,
Who act so counter heavenly mercy's plan?
Who sin so oft have mourn'd, yet to temptation ran?
O Thou, great Governor of all below!
If I may dare a lifted eye to Thee,
Thy nod can make the tempest cease to blow,
Or still the tumult of the raging sea:
With that controlling pow'r assist ev'n me
Those headlong furious passions to confine;
For all unfit I feel my pow'rs to be,
To rule their torrent in th' allowed line;
O, aid me with Thy help, Omnipotence Divine!
* * * * *
XII.
A WINTER NIGHT.
"Poor naked wretches, wheresoe'er you are
That bide the pelting of the pitiless storm!
How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides,
Your looped and widow'd raggedness defend you
From seasons such as these? "
SHAKSPEARE.
["This poem," says my friend Thomas Carlyle, "is worth several
homilies on mercy, for it is the voice of Mercy herself. Burns,
indeed, lives in sympathy: his soul rushes forth into all the realms
of being: nothing that has existence can be indifferent to him. "]
When biting Boreas, fell and doure,
Sharp shivers thro' the leafless bow'r;
When Phoebus gies a short-liv'd glow'r
Far south the lift,
Dim-darkening through the flaky show'r,
Or whirling drift:
Ae night the storm the steeples rocked,
Poor labour sweet in sleep was locked,
While burns, wi' snawy wreeths up-choked,
Wild-eddying swirl.
Or through the mining outlet bocked,
Down headlong hurl.
Listening, the doors an' winnocks rattle,
I thought me on the ourie cattle,
Or silly sheep, wha bide this brattle
O' winter war,
And through the drift, deep-lairing sprattle
Beneath a scar.
Ilk happing bird, wee, helpless thing,
That, in the merry months o' spring,
Delighted me to hear thee sing,
What comes o' thee?
Whare wilt thou cower thy chittering wing,
An' close thy e'e?
Ev'n you on murd'ring errands toil'd,
Lone from your savage homes exiled,
The blood-stained roost, and sheep-cote spoiled
My heart forgets,
While pitiless the tempest wild
Sore on you beats.
Now Phoebe, in her midnight reign,
Dark muffled, viewed the dreary plain;
Still crowding thoughts, a pensive train,
Rose in my soul,
When on my ear this plaintive strain
Slow, solemn, stole:--
"Blow, blow, ye winds, with heavier gust!
And freeze, thou bitter-biting frost:
Descend, ye chilly, smothering snows!
Not all your rage, as now united, shows
More hard unkindness, unrelenting,
Vengeful malice unrepenting,
Than heaven-illumined man on brother man bestows;
See stern oppression's iron grip,
Or mad ambition's gory hand,
Sending, like blood-hounds from the slip,
Woe, want, and murder o'er a land!
Even in the peaceful rural vale,
Truth, weeping, tells the mournful tale,
How pamper'd luxury, flattery by her side,
The parasite empoisoning her ear.
With all the servile wretches in the rear,
Looks o'er proud property, extended wide;
And eyes the simple rustic hind,
Whose toil upholds the glittering show,
A creature of another kind,
Some coarser substance, unrefin'd,
Placed for her lordly use thus far, thus vile, below.
Where, where is love's fond, tender throe,
With lordly honour's lofty brow,
The powers you proudly own?
Is there, beneath love's noble name,
Can harbour, dark, the selfish aim,
To bless himself alone!
Mark maiden innocence a prey
To love-pretending snares,
This boasted honour turns away,
Shunning soft pity's rising sway,
Regardless of the tears and unavailing prayers!
Perhaps this hour, in misery's squalid nest,
She strains your infant to her joyless breast,
And with a mother's fears shrinks at the rocking blast!
Oh ye! who, sunk in beds of down,
Feel not a want but what yourselves create,
Think, for a moment, on his wretched fate,
Whom friends and fortune quite disown!
Ill satisfied keen nature's clamorous call,
Stretched on his straw he lays himself to sleep,
While through the ragged roof and chinky wall,
Chill o'er his slumbers piles the drifty heap!
Think on the dungeon's grim confine,
Where guilt and poor misfortune pine!
Guilt, erring man, relenting view!
But shall thy legal rage pursue
The wretch, already crushed low
By cruel fortune's undeserved blow?
Affliction's sons are brothers in distress,
A brother to relieve, how exquisite the bliss! "
I heard nae mair, for Chanticleer
Shook off the pouthery snaw,
And hailed the morning with a cheer--
A cottage-rousing craw!
But deep this truth impressed my mind--
Through all his works abroad,
The heart benevolent and kind
The most resembles GOD.
* * * * *
XIII.
REMORSE.
A FRAGMENT.
["I entirely agree," says Burns, "with the author of the _Theory of
Moral Sentiments_, that Remorse is the most painful sentiment that can
embitter the human bosom; an ordinary pitch of fortitude may bear up
admirably well, under those calamities, in the procurement of which we
ourselves have had no hand; but when our follies or crimes have made
us wretched, to bear all with manly firmness, and at the same time
have a proper penitential sense of our misconduct, is a glorious
effort of self-command. "]
Of all the numerous ills that hurt our peace,
That press the soul, or wring the mind with anguish,
Beyond comparison the worst are those
That to our folly or our guilt we owe.
In every other circumstance, the mind
Has this to say, 'It was no deed of mine;'
But when to all the evil of misfortune
This sting is added--'Blame thy foolish self! '
Or worser far, the pangs of keen remorse;
The torturing, gnawing consciousness of guilt,--
Of guilt, perhaps, where we've involved others;
The young, the innocent, who fondly lov'd us,
Nay, more, that very love their cause of ruin!
O burning hell! in all thy store of torments,
There's not a keener lash!
Lives there a man so firm, who, while his heart
Feels all the bitter horrors of his crime,
Can reason down its agonizing throbs;
And, after proper purpose of amendment,
Can firmly force his jarring thoughts to peace?
O, happy! happy! enviable man!
O glorious magnanimity of soul!
* * * * *
XIV.
THE JOLLY BEGGARS.
A CANTATA.
[This inimitable poem, unknown to Currie and unheardof while the poet
lived, was first given to the world, with other characteristic pieces,
by Mr. Stewart of Glasgow, in the year 1801. Some have surmised that
it is not the work of Burns; but the parentage is certain: the
original manuscript at the time of its composition, in 1785, was put
into the hands of Mr. Richmond of Mauchline, and afterwards given by
Burns himself to Mr. Woodburn, factor of the laird of Craigen-gillan;
the song of "For a' that, and a' that" was inserted by the poet, with
his name, in the _Musical Museum_ of February, 1790. Cromek admired,
yet did not, from overruling advice, print it in the _Reliques_, for
which he was sharply censured by Sir Walter Scott, in the _Quarterly
Review. _ The scene of the poem is in Mauchline, where Poosie Nancy had
her change-house. Only one copy in the handwriting of Burns is
supposed to exist; and of it a very accurate fac-simile has been
given. ]
RECITATIVO.
When lyart leaves bestrow the yird,
Or wavering like the bauckie-bird,
Bedim cauld Boreas' blast;
When hailstanes drive wi' bitter skyte
And infant frosts begin to bite,
In hoary cranreuch drest;
Ae night at e'en a merry core
O' randie, gangrel bodies,
In Poosie-Nansie's held the splore,
To drink their orra duddies:
Wi' quaffing and laughing,
They ranted an' they sang;
Wi' jumping and thumping,
The vera girdle rang.
First, neist the fire, in auld red rags,
Ane sat, weel brac'd wi' mealy bags,
And knapsack a' in order;
His doxy lay within his arm,
Wi' usquebae an' blankets warm--
She blinket on her sodger:
An' ay he gies the tozie drab
The tither skelpin' kiss,
While she held up her greedy gab
Just like an aumous dish.
Ilk smack still, did crack still,
Just like a cadger's whip,
Then staggering and swaggering
He roar'd this ditty up--
AIR.
Tune--"_Soldiers' Joy. _"
I am a son of Mars,
Who have been in many wars,
And show my cuts and scars
Wherever I come;
This here was for a wench,
And that other in a trench,
When welcoming the French
At the sound of the drum.
Lal de daudle, &c.
My 'prenticeship I past
Where my leader breath'd his last,
When the bloody die was cast
On the heights of Abram;
I served out my trade
When the gallant game was play'd,
And the Moro low was laid
At the sound of the drum.
Lal de daudle, &c.
I lastly was with Curtis,
Among the floating batt'ries,
And there I left for witness
An arm and a limb;
Yet let my country need me,
With Elliot to head me,
I'd clatter on my stumps
At the sound of a drum.
Lal de dandle, &c.
And now tho' I must beg,
With a wooden arm and leg,
And many a tatter'd rag
Hanging over my bum
I'm as happy with my wallet,
My bottle and my callet,
As when I used in scarlet
To follow a drum.
Lal de daudle, &c.
What tho' with hoary locks
I must stand the winter shocks,
Beneath the woods and rocks
Oftentimes for a home,
When the tother bag I sell,
And the tother bottle tell,
I could meet a troop of hell,
At the sound of a drum.
Lal de daudle, &c.
RECITATIVO.
He ended; and kebars sheuk
Aboon the chorus roar;
While frighted rattons backward leuk,
And seek the benmost bore;
A fairy fiddler frae the neuk,
He skirl'd out--encore!
But up arose the martial Chuck,
And laid the loud uproar.
AIR.
Tune--"_Soldier laddie. _"
I once was a maid, tho' I cannot tell when,
And still my delight is in proper young men;
Some one of a troop of dragoons was my daddie,
No wonder I'm fond of a sodger laddie.
Sing, Lal de dal, &c.
The first of my loves was a swaggering blade,
To rattle the thundering drum was his trade;
His leg was so tight, and his cheek was so ruddy,
Transported I was with my sodger laddie.
Sing, Lal de dal, &c.
But the godly old chaplain left him in the lurch,
The sword I forsook for the sake of the church;
He ventur'd the soul, and I risk'd the body,
'Twas then I prov'd false to my sodger laddie.
Sing, Lal de dal, &c.
Full soon I grew sick of my sanctified sot,
The regiment at large for a husband I got;
From the gilded spontoon to the fife I was ready,
I asked no more but a sodger laddie.
Sing, Lal de dal, &c.
But the peace it reduc'd me to beg in despair,
Till I met my old boy in a Cunningham fair;
His rags regimental they flutter'd so gaudy,
My heart is rejoic'd at my sodger laddie.
Sing, Lal de dal, &c.
And now I have liv'd--I know not how long,
And still I can join in a cup or a song;
But whilst with both hands I can hold the glass steady,
Here's to thee, my hero, my sodger laddie.
Sing, Lal de dal, &c.
RECITATIVO.
Poor Merry Andrew in the neuk,
Sat guzzling wi' a tinkler hizzie;
They mind't na wha the chorus teuk,
Between themselves they were sae busy:
At length wi' drink and courting dizzy
He stoitered up an' made a face;
Then turn'd, an' laid a smack on Grizzie,
Syne tun'd his pipes wi' grave grimace.
AIR.
