ROBERT BURNS.*
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Ingersoll, Robert Green and Widger, David
He had spent most of his time working on a farm, raising very poor crops, getting deeper and deeper into debt, until finally the death of his father left him to struggle as best he might for himself.
In the year 1759, Scotland was emerging from the darkness and gloom of Calvinism. The attention of the people had been drawn from the other world, or rather from the other worlds, to the affairs of this. The commercial spirit, the interests of trade, were winning men from the discussion of predestination and the sacred decrees of God. Mechanics and manufacturers were undermining theology. The influence of the clergy was gradually diminishing, and the beggarly elements of this life were beginning to attract the attention of the Scotch. The people at that time were mostly poor. They had made but little progress in art and science. They had been engaged for many years fighting for their political or theological rights, or to destroy the rights of others. They had great energy, great natural sense, and courage without limit, and it may be well enough to add that they were as obstinate as brave.
Several countries have had a metaphysical peasantry. It is true of parts of Switzerland about the time of Calvin. In Holland, after the people had suffered all the cruelties that Spain could inflict, they began to discuss as to foreordination and free will, and upon these questions destroyed each other. The same is true of New England, and peculiarly true of Scotland—a metaphysical peasantry—men who lived in mud houses thatched with straw and discussed the motives of God and the means by which the Infinite Being was to accomplish his ends.
For many years the Scotch had been ruled by the clergy. The power of the Scotch preacher was unlimited. It so happened that the religion of Scotland became synonymous with patriotism, and those who were fighting Scotland were also fighting her religion. This drew priest and people together; and the priest naturally took advantage of the situation. They not only determined upon the policy to be pursued by the people, but they went into every detail of life. And in this world there has never been established a more odious tyranny or a more odious form of government than that of the Scotch Kirk.
A few men had made themselves famous—David Hume, Adam Smith, Doctor Hugh Blair, he of the grave, Beattie and Ramsay, Reid and Robertson—but the great body of the people were orthodox to the last drop of their blood. Nothing seemed to please them like attending church, like hearing sermons. Before Communion Sabbath they frequently met on Friday, having two or three sermons on that day, three or four on Saturday, more if possible on Sunday, and wound up with a kind of gospel spree on Monday. They loved it. I think it was Heinrich Heine who said, "It is not true, it is not true that the damned in hell are compelled to hear all the sermons preached on earth." He says this is not true. This shows that there is some mercy even in hell. They were infinitely interested in these questions.
And yet, the people were social, fond of games, of outdoor sports, full of song and story, and no folks ever passed the cup with a happier smile.
Sometimes I have thought that they were saved from the gloom of Calvinism by the use of intoxicating liquors. It may be that John Barleycorn redeemed the Scotch and saved them from the divine dyspepsia of the Calvinistic creed. So, too, it may be that the Puritan was saved by rum, and the Hollander by schnapps. Yet, in spite of the gloom of the creed, in spite of the climate of mists and fogs, and the maniac winters, the songs of Scotland are the sweetest and the tenderest in all the world.
Robert Burns was a peasant—a ploughman—a poet. Why is it that millions and millions of men and women love this man? He was a Scotchman, and all the tendrils of his heart struck deep in Scotland's soil. He voiced the ideals of the best and greatest of his race and blood. And yet he is as dear to the citizens of this great Republic as to Scotia's sons and daughters.
All great poetry has a national flavor. It tastes of the soil. No matter how great it is, how wide, how universal, the flavor of locality is never lost. Burns made common life beautiful. He idealized the sun-burnt girls who worked in the fields. He put honest labor above titled idleness. He made a cottage far more poetic than a palace. He painted the simple joys and ecstasies and raptures of sincere love. He put native sense above the polish of schools.
We love him because he was independent, sturdy, self-poised, social, generous, susceptible, thrilled by a look, by a touch, full of pity, carrying the sorrows of others in his heart, even those of animals; hating to see anybody suffer, and lamenting the death of everything—even of trees and flowers. We love him because he was a natural democrat, and hated tyranny in every form.
We love him because he was always on the side of the people, feeling the throb of progress.
Burns read but little, had but few books; had but a little of what is called education; had only an outline of history, a little of philosophy, in its highest sense. His library consisted of the Life of Hannibal, the History of Wallace, Ray's Wisdom of God, Stackhouse's History of the Bible; two or three plays of Shakespeare, Ferguson's Scottish Poems, Pope's Homer, Shenstone, McKenzie's Man of Feeling and Ossian.
Burns was a man of genius. He was like a spring—something that suggests no labor.
A spring seems to be a perpetual free gift of nature. There is no thought of toil. The water comes whispering to the pebbles without effort. There is no machinery, no pipes, no pumps, no engines, no water-works, nothing that suggests expense or trouble. So a natural poet is, when compared with the educated, with the polished, with the industrious.
Burns seems to have done everything without effort. His poems wrote themselves. He was overflowing with sympathies, with suggestions, with ideas, in every possible direction. There is no midnight oil. There is nothing of the student—no suggestion of their having been re-written or re-cast. There is in his heart a poetic April and May, and all the poetic seeds burst into sudden life. In a moment the seed is a plant, and the plant is in blossom, and the fruit is given to the world.
He looks at everything from a natural point of view; and he writes of the men and women with whom he was acquainted. He cares nothing for mythology, nothing for the legends of the Greeks and Romans. He draws but little from history. Everything that he uses is within his reach, and he knows it from centre to circumference. All his figures and comparisons are perfectly natural. He does not endeavor to make angels of fine ladies.
He takes the servant girls with whom he is acquainted, the dairy maids that he knows. He puts wings upon them and makes the very angels envious.
And yet this man, so natural, keeping his cheek so close to the breast of nature, strangely enough thought that Pope and Churchill and Shenstone and Thomson and Lyttelton and Beattie were great poets.
His first poem was addressed to Nellie Kilpatrick, daughter of the blacksmith. He was in love with Ellison Begbie, offered her his heart and was refused. She was a servant, working in a family and living on the banks of the Cessnock. Jean Armour, his wife, was the daughter of a tailor, and Highland Mary, a servant—a milk-maid.
He did not make women of goddesses, but he made goddesses of women.
POET OF LOVE.
Burns was the poet of love. To him woman was divine. In the light of her eyes he stood transfigured. Love changed this peasant to a king; the plaid became a robe of purple; the ploughman became a poet; the poor laborer an inspired lover.
In his "Vision" his native Muse tells the story of his verse:
"When youthful Love, warm-blushing strong, Keen-shivering shot thy nerves along, Those accents, grateful to thy tongue, Th' adored Name, I taught thee how to pour in song, To soothe thy flame."
Ah, this light from heaven: how it has purified the heart of man!
Was there ever a sweeter song than "Bonnie Doon"?
"Thou'lt break my heart thou bonnie bird That sings beside thy mate, For sae I sat and sae I sang, And wist na o' my fate."
or,
"O, my luve's like a red, red rose That's newly sprung in June; O, my luve's like the melodie That's sweetly play'd in tune."
It would consume days to give the intense and tender lines—lines wet with the heart's blood, lines that throb and sigh and weep, lines that glow like flames, lines that seem to clasp and kiss.
But the most perfect love-poem that I know—pure the tear of gratitude—is "To Mary in Heaven:"
"Thou lingering star, with less'ning ray, That lov'st to greet the early morn, Again thou usher'st in the day My Mary from my soul was torn. O Mary! dear departed shade! Where is thy place of blissful rest? Seest thou thy lover lowly laid? Hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast? "That sacred hour can I forget? Can I forget the hallow'd grove Where, by the winding Ayr, we met, To live one day of parting love? Eternity will not efface Those records dear of transports past; Thy image at our last embrace; Ah! little thought we 'twas our last! "Ayr, gurgling, kiss'd his pebbled shore, O'erhung with wild woods, thick'ning green; The fragrant birch, and hawthorn hoar, Twin'd am'rous round the raptur'd scene. The flowers sprang wanton to be prest, The birds sang love on ev'ry spray, Till too, too soon, the glowing west Proclaim'd the speed of wingèd day. "Still o'er these scenes my mem'ry wakes, And fondly broods with miser care! Time but the impression stronger makes, As streams their channels deeper wear. My Mary, dear departed shade! Where is thy blissful place of rest? Seest thou thy lover lowly laid? Hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast?"
Above all the daughters of luxury and wealth, above all of Scotland's queens rises this pure and gentle girl made deathless by the love of Robert Burns.
POET OF HOME
He was the poet of the home—of father, mother, child—of the purest wedded love.
In the "Cotter's Saturday Night," one of the noblest and sweetest poems in the literature of the world, is a description of the poor cotter going from his labor to his home:
"At length his lonely cot appears in view, Beneath the shelter of an aged tree; Th' expectant wee-things, toddlin', stacher through To meet their Dad, wi' flichterin' noise and glee. His wee bit ingle, bClinkin' bonnilie, His clean hearth-stane, his thrifty wifie's smile, The lisping infant prattling on his knee, Does a' his weary carking cares beguile, And makes him quite forget his labour an' his toil."
And in the same poem, after having described the courtship, Burns bursts into this perfect flower:
"O happy love! where love like this is found! O heart-felt raptures! bliss beyond compare! I've pacèd much this weary, mortal round, And sage experience bids me this declare: If Heaven a draught of heavenly pleasure spare One cordial in this melancholy vale, 'Tis when a youthful, loving, modest pair, In other's arms, breathe out the tender tale Beneath the milk-white thorn that scents the ev'ning gale."
Is there in the world a more beautiful—a more touching picture than the old couple sitting by the ingleside with clasped hands, and the pure, patient, loving old wife saying to the white-haired man who won her heart when the world was young: