Robert Burns: How To Know Him. William Allan Neilson
style. This book was to Robert of the greatest consequence. It inspired him with a strong desire to excel in letter-writing, while it furnished him with models by some of the first writers in our language.”
Interesting as are the details as to the antiquated manuals from which Burns gathered his general information, it is more important to note the more personal implications in this account. Respect for learning has long been wide-spread among the peasantry of Scotland, but it is evident that William Burnes was intellectually far above the average of his class. The schoolmaster Murdoch has left a portrait of him in which he not only extols his virtues as a man but emphasizes his zest for things of the mind, and states that “he spoke the English language with more propriety—both with respect to diction and pronunciation—than any man I ever knew, with no greater advantages.” Though tender and affectionate, he seems to have inspired both wife and children with a reverence amounting to awe, and he struck strangers as reserved and austere. He recognized in Robert traces of extraordinary gifts, but he did not hide from him the fact that his son's temperament gave him anxiety for his future. Mrs. Burnes was a devoted wife and mother, by no means her husband's intellectual equal, but vivacious and quick-tempered, with a memory stored with the song and legend of the country-side. Other details can be filled in from the poet's own picture of his father's household as given with little or no idealization in The Cotter's Saturday Night.
THE COTTER'S SATURDAY NIGHT
My lov'd, my honour'd, much respected friend!
No mercenary bard his homage pays:
With honest pride I scorn each selfish end,
My dearest meed a friend's esteem and praise:
To you I sing, in simple Scottish lays,
The lowly train in life's sequester'd scene;
The native feelings strong, the guileless ways;
What Aiken in a cottage would have been—
Ah! tho' his worth unknown, far happier there, I ween.
November chill blaws load wi' angry sough; wail
The shortening winter-day is near a close;
The miry beasts retreating frae the pleugh;
The black'ning trains o' craws to their repose:
The toil-worn Cotter frae his labour goes,
This night his weekly moil is at an end,
Collects his spades, his mattocks, and his hoes,
Hoping the morn in ease and rest to spend,
And weary, o'er the moor, his course does hameward bend.
At length his lonely cot appears in view,
Beneath the shelter of an aged tree;
Th' expectant wee-things, toddlin', stacher through stagger
To meet their dad, wi' flichterin' noise an' glee. fluttering
His wee bit ingle, blinkin bonnilie, fire
His clean hearth-stane, his thrifty wifie's smile,
The lisping infant prattling on his knee,
Does a' his weary kiaugh and care beguile, worry
An' makes him quite forget his labour an' his toil.
Belyve, the elder bairns come drapping in, Soon
At service out, amang the farmers roun';
Some ca' the pleugh, some herd, some tentie rin drive, heedful run
A cannie errand to a neibor town: quiet
Their eldest hope, their Jenny, woman-grown,
In youthfu' bloom, love sparkling in her e'e, eye
Comes hame, perhaps to shew a braw new gown, fine
Or deposite her sair-won penny-fee, hard-won wages
To help her parents dear, if they in hardship be.
With joy unfeign'd brothers and sisters meet,
An' each for other's weelfare kindly spiers: asks
The social hours, swift-wing'd, unnoticed fleet;
Each tells the uncos that he sees or hears; wonders
The parents, partial, eye their hopeful years;
Anticipation forward points the view.
The mother, wi' her needle an' her sheers,
Gars auld claes look amaist as weel's the new; Makes old clothes
The father mixes a' wi' admonition due.
Their master's an' their mistress's command
The younkers a' are warnèd to obey; youngsters
An' mind their labours wi' an eydent hand, diligent
An' ne'er, tho' out o' sight, to jauk or play: trifle
‘And O! be sure to fear the Lord alway,
An' mind your duty, duly, morn an' night!
Lest in temptation's path ye gang astray, go
Implore His counsel and assisting might:
They never sought in vain that sought the Lord aright!’
But hark! a rap comes gently to the door;
Jenny, wha kens the meaning o' the same, knows
Tells how a neibor lad cam o'er the moor,
To do some errands, and convoy her hame.
The wily mother sees the conscious flame
Sparkle in Jenny's e'e, and flush her cheek;
Wi' heart-struck anxious care, inquires his name,
While Jenny hafflins is afraid to speak; half
Weel pleased the mother hears it's nae wild worthless rake.
Wi' kindly welcome, Jenny brings him ben; in
A strappin' youth; he takes the mother's eye;
Blythe Jenny sees the visit's no ill ta'en;
The father cracks of horses, pleughs, and kye. chats, cows
The youngster's artless heart o'erflows wi' joy,
But blate and laithfu', scarce can weel behave; shy, bashful
The mother, wi' a woman's wiles, can spy
What makes the youth sae bashfu' an' sae grave;
Weel-pleased to think her bairn's respected like the lave. child, rest
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 evening gale.’
Is there, in human form, that bears a heart—
A wretch, a villain, lost to love and truth—
That