Part 5

But to-night we are going to talk of a poet--one who poured out his soul in song. How does a country become great? By producing great poets. Why is it that Scotland, when the roll of nations is called, can stand up and proudly answer "here"? Because Robert Burns has lived. It is Robert Burns that put Scotland in the front rank.

On the 25th of January, 1759, Robert Burns was born. William Burns, a gardener, his father; Agnes Brown, his mother. He was born near the little town of Ayr, in a little cottage made of mud and thatched with straw. From the first, poverty was his portion,--"Poverty, the half-sister of Death." The father struggled as best he could, but at last overcome more by misfortunes than by disease, died in 1784, at the age of 63. Robert attended school at Alloway Mill, and had been taught a little by John Murdock, and some by his father. That was his education--with this exception, that whenever nature produces a genius, the old mother holds him close to her heart and whispers secrets to his ears that others do not know.

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, blinkin' 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:

"John Anderson, my jo, John, When we were first acquent; Your locks were like the raven, Your bonnie brow was brent; But now your brow is beld, John, Your locks are like the snaw; But blessings on your frosty pow, John Anderson, my jo.

"John Anderson, my jo, John, We clamb the hill thegither; And monie a canty day, John, We've had wi' ane anither; Now we maun totter down, John, But hand in hand we'll go, And sleep thegither at the foot, John Anderson, my jo."

Burns taught that the love of wife and children was the highest--that to toil for them was the noblest.

"The sacred lowe o' weel placed love, Luxuriantly indulge it; But never tempt the illicit rove, Though naething should divulge it."

"I waine the quantum of the sin, The hazzard o'concealing; But och! it hardens all within, And petrifies the feeling."

"To make a happy fireside clime To weans and wife, That's the true pathos, and sublime, Of human life."

FRIENDSHIP.

He was the poet of friendship:

"Should auld acquaintance be forgot, And never brought to min'? Should auld acquaintance be forgot, And days o' auld lang syne?"

Wherever those who speak the English language assemble--wherever the Anglo-Saxon people meet with clasp and smile--these words are given to the air.

SCOTCH DRINK.

The poet of good Scotch drink, of merry meetings, of the cup that cheers, author of the best drinking song in the world:

"O, Willie brew'd a peck o' maut, And Rob and Allen came to see; Three blyther hearts, that lee-lang night, Ye wadna find in Christendie.

Chorus.

"We are na fou, we're no that fou, But just a drappie in our ee; The cock may craw, the day may daw, And aye we'll taste the barley bree.

"Here are we met, three merry boys, Three merry boys, I trow, are we; And monie a night we've merry been, And monie mae we hope to be!

We are na fou, &c.

"It is the moon, I ken her horn, That's blinkin in the lift say hie; She shines sae bright to wyle us hame, But by my sooth she'll wait a wee!

We are na fou, &c.

"Wha first shall rise to gang awa, A cuckold, coward loun is he! Wha last beside his chair shall fa', He is the King amang us three!

We are na fou, &c."

POETS BORN, NOT MADE.

He did not think the poet could be made--that colleges could furnish feeling, capacity, genius. He gave his opinion of these manufactured minstrels:

"A set o' dull, conceited hashes, Confuse their brains in college classes! They gang in stirks, and come out asses, Plain truth to speak; An' syne they think to climb Parnassus By dint o' Greek!"

"Gie me ane spark o' Nature's fire, That's a' the learning I desire; Then tho' I drudge thro' dub an' mire At pleugh or cart, My Muse, though hamely in attire, May touch the heart."

BURNS, THE ARTIST.

He was an artist--a painter of pictures.

This of the brook:

"Whyles owre a linn the burnie plays, As thro' the glen it wimpl't; Whyles round a rocky scaur it strays; Whyles in a wiel it dimpl't; Whyles glitter's to the nightly rays, Wi' bickering, dancing dazzle; Whyles cookit underneath the braes, Below the spreading hazel, Unseen that night."

Or this from Tam O'Shanter:

"But pleasures are like poppies spread, You seize the flow'r, its bloom is shed, Or, like the snow falls in the river, A moment white--then melts forever; Or, like the borealis race, That flit ere you can point their place; Or, like the rainbow's lovely form, Evanishing amid the storm."

This:

"As in the bosom of the stream The moon-beam dwells at dewy e'en; So, trembling, pure, was tender love, Within the breast o' bonnie Jean."

"The sun had clos'd the winter day, The Curlers quat their roarin play, An' hunger's Maukin ta'en her way To kail-yards green, While faithless snaws ilk step betray Whare she had been."

"O, sweet are Coila's haughs an' woods, When lintwhites chant amang the buds, And jinkin' hares, in amorous whids, Their loves enjoy, While thro' the braes the cushat croons Wi' wailfu' cry!"

"Ev'n winter bleak has charms to me When winds rave thro' the naked tree; Or frosts on hills of Ochiltree Are hoary gray; Or blinding drifts wild-furious flee, Dark'ning the day!"

This of the lark and daisy--the daintiest and nearest perfect in our language:

"Alas! it's no' thy neebor sweet, The bonnie Lark, companion meet! Bending thee 'mang the dewy weet! Wi' spreckl'd breast, When upward-springing, blythe, to greet The purpling east."

A REAL DEMOCRAT.

He was in every fibre of his being a sincere democrat. He was a believer in the people--in the sacred rights of man. He believed that honest peasants were superior to titled parasites. He knew the so-called "gentrv" of his time.

In one of his letters to Dr. Moore is this passage: "It takes a few dashes into the world to give the young great man that proper, decent, unnoticing disregard for the poor, insignificant, stupid devils--the mechanics and peasantry around him--who were born in the same village."

He knew the infinitely cruel spirit of caste--a spirit that despises the useful--the children of toil--those who bear the burdens of the world.

"If I'm design'd yon lordling's slave, By nature's law design'd, Why was an independent wish E'er planted in my mind?

If not, why am I subject to . His cruelty, or scorn? Or why has man the will and pow'r To make his fellow mourn?"

Against the political injustice of his time--against the artificial distinctions among men by which the lowest were regarded as the highest--he protested in the great poem, "A man's a man for a' that," every line of which came like lava from his heart.

"Is there, for honest poverty, That hangs his head, and a' that? The coward-slave, we pass him by, We dare be poor for a' that! For a' that, and a' that, Our toils obscure, and a' that; The rank is but the guinea stamp; The man's the gowd for a' that."

"What tho' on hamely fare we dine, Wear hodden-gray, and a' that; Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine, A man's a man for a' that. For a' that, and a' that, Their tinsel show, and a' that; The honest man, tho' e'er sae poor, Is king o' men for a' that."

"Ye see yon birkie, ca'd a lord, Wha struts, and stares, and a' that; Tho' hundreds worship at his word, He's but a coof for a' that; For a' that, and a' that, His riband, star, and a' that, The man' o' independent mind, He looks and laughs at a' that."

"A prince can mak' a belted knight, A marquis, duke, and a' that; But an honest man's aboon his might, Guid faith he mauna fa' that! For a' that, and a' that, Their dignities, and a' that, The pith o' sense, and pride o' worth, Are higher ranks than a' that.

"Then let us pray that come it may, As come it will for a' that; That sense and worth, o'er a' the earth, May bear the gree and a' that. For a' that, and a' that; It's cornin' yet for a' that That man to man, the warld o'er, Shall brithers be for a' that."

No grander declaration of independence was ever uttered. It stirs the blood like a declaration of war. It is the apotheosis of honesty, independence, sense and worth. And it is a prophecy of that better day when men will be brothers the world over.

HIS THEOLOGY.

Burns was superior in heart and brain to the theologians of his time. He knew that the creed of Calvin was infinitely cruel and absurd, and he attacked it with every weapon that his brain could forge.

He was not awed by the clergy, and he cared nothing for what was called "authority." He insisted on thinking for himself. Sometimes he faltered, and now and then, fearing that some friend might take offence, he would say or write a word in favor of the Bible, and sometimes he praised the Scriptures in words of scorn.

He laughed at the dogma of eternal pain--at hell as described by the preacher:

"A vast, unbottom'd, boundless pit, Fill'd fou o' lowin' brunstane, Wha's ragin' flame an' scorchin' heat Wad melt the hardest whun-stane! The half asleep start up wi' fear, An' think they hear it roarin', When presently it does appear, 'Twas but some neebor snorin'. Asleep that day."

The dear old doctrine that man is totally depraved, that morality is a snare--a flowery path leading to perdition--excited the indignation of Burns. He put the doctrine in verse:

"Morality, thou deadly bane, Thy tens o' thousands thou hast slain! Vain is his hope, whose stay and trust is In moral mercy, truth and justice." He understood the hypocrites of his day: "Hypocrisy, in mercy spare it! That holy robe, O dinna tear it! Spare't for their sakes wha aften wear it, The lads in black; But your curst wit, when it comes near it, Rives't aff their back."

"Then orthodoxy yet may prance, And Learning in a woody dance, And that fell cur ca'd Common Sense, That bites sae sair, Be banish'd owre the seas to France; Let him bark there."

"They talk religion in their mouth; They talk o' mercy, grace, an' truth, For what? to gie their malice skouth On some puir wight, An' hunt him down, o'er right an' ruth, To ruin straight."

"Doctor Mac, Doctor Mac, Ye should stretch on a rack, To strike evil doers wi' terror; To join faith and sense Upon any pretence, Was heretic damnable error, Doctor Mac, Was heretic damnable error."

But the greatest, the sharpest, the deadliest, the keenest, the wittiest thing ever said or written against Calvinism is Holy Willie's Prayer:--

"O Thou, wha in the Heavens dost dwell, Wha, as it pleases best thysel', Sends ane to heaven and ten to hell, A' for thy glory, And no for onie guid or ill They've done afore thee!

"I bless and praise thy matchless might, When thousands thou has left in night, That I am here afore thy sight For gifts an' grace, A burnin' an' a shinin' light, To a' this place.

"What was I, or my generation, That I should get sic exaltation? I, wha deserve sic just damnation, For broken laws, Five thousand years 'fore my creation, Thro' Adam's cause?

"When frae my mither's womb I fell, Thou might hae plunged me into hell, To gnash my gums, to weep and wail, In burnin' lake, Where damnèd devils roar and yell, Chained to a stake.

"Yet I am here a chosen sample, To show Thy grace is great and ample; I'm here a pillar in Thy temple, Strong as a rock, A guide, a buckler, an example To a' Thy flock."