The Essential Works of Robert G. Ingersoll. Robert Green Ingersoll
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