Now, ere we leave the festal board, We'll plight our troth by deed and word Auld Scotia, and Auld Scotia's Bard, And as the e'enin' onward draws Wi' "Auld Langsyne" we'll rax oor jaws; We'll now croon a' wi' loud huzzas Carlyle on Burns. "AT the end of 1783," says Professor Morley of Burns and his brother Gilbert, "three months before their father's death, the two young men took the farm of Mossgiel in the parish of Mauchline. There they sought to maintain themselves, and their mother, but still they ploughed and sowed, and reaped little but bitterness. At this time the genius of Burns-the greatest lyric poet who has ever lived -was pouring itself out in song, colored with every mood of his rich sympathetic nature. Religious depths and moods of recklessness, wild snatches of mirth born of melancholy, scorn of hypocrisy ; love-singing, gay, idle, earnest, tender; the new spirit of defiance for authority; the rising claim on behalf of human fellowship and freedom and the dignity of man; with touching utterances from the depths of a soul beset by dangers, and looking out into the darkness that shrouds all its future path, are in the songs of Burns.” The Secret of Burns' Popularity. THERE is a profound truth in the oft-quoted saying of Fletcher of Saltoun: "Give me," he said, "the making of a people's ballads, and I care not who makes their laws." Easy as it seems, songwriting is one of the most difficult of accomplishments. Indeed it has been said by a competent critic that there are but three really great song-writers— Horace in Italy, Beranger in France, and Burns in Scotland. The gift of song Burns has in perfection; no poet of any age or nation is more graphic than he is. His poetry appeals to all classes, the learned and the unlearned, for his themes are drawn from the common experience of mankind. He is true to Nature, and his songs, therefore, find an echo in every heart. What, for instance, could sum up the sweet sorrow of love better than that verse in which Scott and Byron saw concentrated "the essence of a thousands love tales" "Had we never loved sae kindly, Had we never loved sae blindly, Never met or never parted, We had ne'er been broken hearted." Of "Scots wha hae" Carlyle has eloquently said that "so long as there is warm blood in the hearts of Scotsmen it will move in fierce thrills under this war ode, the best that was ever written by any pen." The poet is equally at home in the wild humor of "Tam o' Shanter," the bacchanalian revelry of "Willie brewed," the plaintiveness of." Ye Banks and Braes," the deep religious fervor of "The Cotter's Saturday Night," and the couthie, kindly "Auld Langsyne," a song which has come to be the parting chorus of goodwill amongst the English-speaking ace. "A Man's a Man," with its noble refrain, paks out a sentiment that was ever dear to the heart of Burns, and is emphatically a song for all time. Herein lies the secret of the popularity of our National Bard. He has guaged every mood of man's heart, and has found adequate expression in a language singularly adapted to be the vehicle of poetic form. Burns holds a high place in the gallery of literature, and as we have said, is now recognized as one of the great poets of the world. It is a tribute to his genius that for the sake of studying his works many persons have pierced what to them was the rough husk of our native tongue; the study of Burns in fact has become fashionable with our southern neighbors. The career of the poet was a chequered one, and marked by many vicissitudes. For much of his misfortune he was himself to blame, but in judging his actions let us always "be to his faults a little kind, and to his failings very blind." The Bishop of Glasgow on Burns. SPEAKING of Burns at a temperance meeting held in Greenock last spring, the Right Rev. Dr. Harrison (Bishop of Glasgow), said that after nearly a hundred years Burns still lived in the hearts of Scotsmen. England had her great national poet, Shakespeare, and she was proud of him. Germany had her great national poet, Goethe, and she honored him; Italy had her great national poet, Dante, and she boasted of him; but Scotland had her great national poet, and he would not say, although it would be true, that she was proud of him, honored him, and boasted of him; he would rather say that she loved him. And it was well that it should be so, for when God gave a country a great poet, He gave that country one of the best blessings that He could bestow. For what was the office of a poet, and what work was he intended to do? To point out to us the beauty that lay round about us. It was to show us that the earth was crammed with Heaven, that every common bush was aglow with good. It was the office of a poet to interpret in his song, as prose could not, the deepest emotions of which the human heart was capable; it was the office of the poet to make men love whatsoever things were true, pure, honorable, just and good, and to make men hate whatsoever was cowardly, base and mean. He did not wish to say a single dishonorable word of the great poet Burns. They would wish him to condemn in the strongest possible terms those drinking customs which were sometimes associated with the memory of Burns, and which could not but bring dishonor to the dead and disgrace and degradation to the living. The truest way of honoring the memory of Burns was to pledge themselves to fight more earnestly against that great giant Intemperance, against which Burns had struggled, and too often struggled in vain. Wi' haggis an' the barley-bree- For Nature's bard we ne'er did see Just honor gi'e the poet an' man, Though his dust lies no' in Abbey gran'; Let him the stane throw, if he can, That's without sin; He died as he had lived-a man! Nae pomp for him. |