Robert Burns: How To Know Him. William Allan Neilson
The same sentiments are kept up with equal spirit and tenderness in the sixth Stanza, but the second and fourth lines ending with short syllables hurts the whole. The seventh Stanza has several minute faults; but I remember I composed it in a wild enthusiasm of passion, and to this hour I never recollect it but my heart melts, and my blood sallies at the remembrance.”
In spite of the early start in poetry given him by Nelly Kilpatrick, he did not produce more than a few pieces of permanent value during the next ten years. He did, however, go on developing and branching out in his social activities, in spite of the depressing grind of the farm. He attended a dancing school (much against his father's will), helped to establish a “Bachelors' Club” for debating, and found time for further love-affairs. That with Ellison Begbie, celebrated by him in The Lass of Cessnock Banks, he took very seriously, and he proposed marriage to the girl in some portentously solemn epistles which remain to us as the earliest examples of his prose. In order to put himself in a position to marry, he determined to learn the trade of flax-dressing; and though Ellison refused him, he went to the neighboring seaport of Irvine to carry out his purpose in the summer of 1781. The flax-dressing experiment ended disastrously with a fire which burned the workshop, and Burns returned penniless to the farm. The poems written about this time express profound melancholy, a mood natural enough in the circumstances, and aggravated by his poor nervous and physical condition.
But his spirit could not remain permanently depressed, and shortly after his return to Lochlea, a trifling accident to a ewe he had bought prompted him to the following delightful and characteristic production.
THE DEATH AND DYING WORDS OF POOR MAILIE, THE AUTHOR'S ONLY PET YOWE
As Mailie, an' her lambs thegither, together
Was ae day nibbling on the tether, one
Upon her cloot she coost a hitch, hoof, looped
An' owre she warsled in the ditch; over, floundered
There, groaning, dying, she did lie,
When Hughoc he cam doytin by. doddering
Wi glowrin' een, an' lifted han's, staring
Poor Hughoc like a statue stan's;
He saw her days were near-hand ended,
But wae's my heart! he could na mend it!
He gapèd wide, but naething spak;
At length poor Mailie silence brak:—
‘O thou, whase 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 own
As muckle gear as buy a sheep—much money
O bid him never tie them mair
Wi' wicked strings o' hemp or hair!
Bat ca' them out to park or hill, drive
An' let them wander at their will;
So may his flock increase, an' grow
To scores o' lambs, an' packs o' woo'! wool
‘Tell him he was a Master kin',
An' aye was guid to me an' mine;
An' now my dying charge I gie him, give
My helpless lambs, I trust them wi' him.
‘O bid him save their harmless lives
Frae dogs, an' tods, an' butchers' knives! foxes
But gie them guid cow-milk their fill,
Till they be fit to fend themsel: look after
An' tent them duly, e'en an' morn, tend
Wi' teats o' hay an' ripps o' corn. bunches, handfuls
‘An' may they never learn the gates ways
Of ither vile wanrestfu' pets—restless
To slink thro' slaps, an' reave an' steal, holes in fences
At stacks o' pease, or stocks o' kail. plants
So may they, like their great forbears,
For mony a year come thro' the shears;
So wives will gie them bits o' bread,
An' bairns greet for them when they're dead. weep
‘My poor tup-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! put, behavior
An' warn him, what I winna name, will not
To stay content wi' yowes at hame; ewes
An' no to rin an' wear his cloots, hoofs
Like ither menseless graceless brutes. unmannerly
‘An neist my yowie, silly thing, next
Gude keep thee frae a tether string!
O may thou ne'er forgather up make friends
Wi' ony blastit moorland tup;
But ay keep mind to moop an' mell, nibble, meddle
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 blether.’ bladder
This said, poor Mailie turn'd her head,
An' closed her een amang the dead! eyes
POOR MAILIE'S ELEGY
Lament in rhyme, lament in prose,
Wi' saut tears tricklin' down your nose, salt
Our bardie's fate is at a close,
Past a' remead; remedy
The last sad cape-stane of his woes—cope-stone
Poor Mailie's dead!
It's no the loss o' warl's gear worldly lucre
That could sae bitter draw the tear,
Or mak our bardie, dowie, wear downcast
The mourning weed:
He's lost a friend and neibor dear
In Mailie dead.
Thro' a' the toun she trotted by him;
A lang half-mile she could descry him;
Wi' kindly bleat, when she did spy him,
She ran wi' speed:
A friend mair faithfu' ne'er cam nigh him
Than Mailie dead.
I wat she was