Part 2

And of course the ideal has its other aspect: “I bring not peace, but a sword.” With the judgment which saw those two truths clear, he was empowered to put upon its trial the existing system, in as far as it denied them. Being very sure of the essentials, he could look upon the good and evil in current practice with the nihilistic audacity of the great saints or the great sinners, of those who have nothing further to gain or nothing further to lose. Hence the unsurpassed energy of his satire, an energy only possible to a mind working with consummate detachment, a mind that sat very loose to all the dead-horse ideas on which the creatures of convention get carried safely through life. But of this particular splendour and peril of his powers the less need here be said because few of the poems in the present selection have been taken from among those which illustrate it. Enough to know that the spirit of Burns remains in the world, as both a glory and a defence; and that many usurping polities will crumble, and many moral incrustations dissolve, when required to meet the challenge of those two conceptions of the sovereignty of the man whose soul is free and the supremacy of kindness. Nor can we doubt that as time goes on, and the idea of his life emerges more clearly out of the chaos in which we see it now, he will be recognised as not only an apparitional personality and a great lyric poet, but as a largely symbolic being also, expressing and embodying the powers in the world which for ever save and for ever beneficently destroy: one of whom it will seem but sense to say—

A Poet, he was brought to birth By Nature’s self or Mother Earth, And had for his prophetic sire The Force that sets the Sun on fire.

Meanwhile, something may be said of the present selection, if only to explain it. The title _Songs and Lyrics_ has been chosen in preference to _Songs and Poems_, that the reader, having been warned, might have no cause for feeling aggrieved at the absence of a number of pieces which are constants in other collections, however variously made up. The term “lyric” has, by one notable example of its use and by subsequent custom, become the accepted general name for poems of many kinds having for their common characters only the quality of expressing feeling or reflection (or the quality, in the case of an anecdote or incident, of producing feeling or reflection) and comparative brevity. It includes readily _O Were I on Parnassus Hill_ and the _Lament for Glencairn_; that astonishing rapture of words and humour and gusto the _Address to a Haggis_, and that wise and tender yet withal scathing _Address to the Unco Guid_. But it cannot be made to cover such an exact description of local custom as _Halloween_; such a satirical and controversial description of local events as _The Holy Fair_ and others of its kind; nor even _Death and Doctor Hornbook_, effective though it is and instinct with the poet’s humorous malice. These things are splendid as literature, are indeed unequalled of their kind; but their quality is mainly intellectual rather than poetical in the more absolute sense, and the interest which they appeal to (and appeal powerfully) is not mainly our interest in poetry. In any case they are in all the collections, and I have considered that by their omission on this occasion it would be possible to render a service to Burns, and to lovers of poetry, which has not yet been rendered. A selection, I have thought, might be made in which the Poet himself, and not the social scenery of which he was a curious observer, nor the alien matters with which he took up, should be the pervading presence in the book, making it continuously lyrical, personal, and human. This, it was obvious, would mean some uncustomary omissions. But experiment has proved that it means also a sudden enlargement of the range of choice among things truly and beautifully poetical. The poetic wealth of Burns seems, indeed, not diminished but enriched by the surrender of that part which issues rather from the general energy of his genius than from those faculties of the soul in which he is distinctively a poet. Certainly there is no dearth, either of value or variety, the range of Burns over the different forms and occasions of poetry being, upon the whole, unique. Shakespeare implicitly contains everything, yet he has contributed to but a few of the forms; while the moderns (like Wordsworth) who have attempted to exemplify the different varieties of poetical composition are lyrically or morally monotonous. _Cælum non animum mutant._

But Burns is as vivid and variable as Nature, and at full power in a wide variety of domains and achievements. Within the domain of Song alone (his peculiar and unquestioned kingdom) his variety is almost as astonishing as his wealth. All the moods of love especially are his: the wistful subjection of soul in _Mary Morison_, the lover’s complaint against fortune and the world in _Poortith Cauld_, or against the harder fate of a mistress’s disdain in _Maun I still on Menie doat_ (these two with exquisite touches of humour on the way!); the grief of parting in _Ae Fond Kiss_, with its unutterable regret, and in _Go, Bring to Me_ with the tumult of the future sounding in it; or again, love’s sense of its own nobility and security rising even above that grief in _My Love is Like a Red Red Rose_ (the greatest love song, which is really a _song_, in literature), or the glossing preoccupation of the enamoured heart, to which every natural beauty is but an illustration and reminder, in _Of a’ the Airts_ (than which there is nothing in the world of song more single, perfect and sincere), or the unanswerable argument of maidens’ reasons when they love in _Tam Glen_ and _The Gallant Weaver_, or the comedy of courtship in _Duncan Gray_ and _Last May a Braw Wooer_, and whatever of joyous and equivocal there might be in the idyll of _Duncan Davison_, so realistic and so reticent. These are but samples of a stock to which only a long catalogue would do representative justice. The reader will at once think of _The Rigs of Barley_ so triumphant and _The Lea Rig_ so trusting, and of _Bonnie Doon_, with the sadness which has ensued from such trust—how often!—and of the echoing _Fareweel to Ballochmyle_ with its atmosphere so large and lonely. But beyond these there is another order of love-song; of the love that has stood the test of life and has increased in kindness as it has emerged from passion. Here we think of _John Anderson, my Jo_, a song for which every good man must bow his head to the memory of Burns. And near to it will be found in these pages a lyric with the same consecration—_The Cardin’ o’t_—not less perfect though less known. It summarises the human epic as lowly and kind folk know it, and is like “the still sad music of humanity,” telling of its affections, its toils, and the little wrongs that mean so much. And beyond these, again, there is another order of love song, in which the destinies enacted or the sorrows endured seem outside the limits of the world. Of this disembodied and metaphysical quality—rare in all literature outside of Shakespeare—are _Open the Door to Me, Oh_, in which we feel the presence of Nature and Time only as spectators of a human woe; and _Ay Waukin’_, with its haunting repetition, its immeasurable sense of want and waiting, and of the endless desolation that there may be for the soul within one summer day. But of the songs of Burns it is impossible to speak adequately, and I have spoken only of the love songs. There are others. Those devoted to convivial joy touch a point of glory in letters quite equalling that ever reached by the true devotee in life. _Willie Brewed a Peck o’ Maut_ tells of the escape of three mortal men, for the space of one night, from the dominion of Fate and from the common ignoble respect for the solar system; while in _Rattlin’ Roarin’ Willie_ there are heroic reverberations, and the last verse shows us Willie seated on high—“at yon board en’”—in a mist of glory as though the guid companie were the gods themselves, and he in Asgard! As for the graver national theme, Burns’s love of Scotland was so implicit and pervading, that he rarely wrote upon it—apart from incidental allusions—even as a man, among all the things that he does for his wife and thinks for her, may rarely think of saying that he loves her. But _when_ he wrote it was _Scots Wha Hae_; and that Jacobite lyric, _It was a’ for our Rightfu’ King_, in which the romantic and adventurous spirit of old Scotland, and its proscribed loyalties and lost causes early and late, quintessentialise into the immortal formula of heroic defeat:

Now a’ is done that men can do And a’ is done in vain.

Of the Lyrics (other than songs) there is no room to speak at length, but the preceding argument renders this less necessary. They all converge to illustrate Burns’s kindness and his love of all who were kind, his manly independence and his respect for that character in others. His kindness, indeed, passes beyond his own species to embrace all life, from the Daisy to the Devil, and even as a farmer he has no animosity against the Field Mouse. The Devil, indeed, he would not publicly encourage, though he would like him to escape the extreme penalty; but the Daisy and the Mouse he brings for good within the sympathies and almost within the circuit of human nature. They are fellow-travellers with him on the strange road of life and stand equally within the menace of calamity. We see the same humane, dissolving, imaginative aptitude in _The Farmer’s Salutation_ and the _Death of Poor Mailie_, pieces in which there is, however, a richness of humanity, involving many qualities besides sympathy, hardly to be described. The knowledge, the moral and social inwardness of the former, and in the latter the finely balanced play of humour, never for an instant excessive where excess would have been easy and spoilt all, have hardly been equalled even by himself. The impulse which made him compassionate towards his fellow-creatures ranged him against those who habitually, and on peculiarly insufficient warrant, judged them harshly. Hence the _Address to the Unco Guid_, which would not have remained unwritten even had he never come personally within the range and shot of their malice. Hence also, in part, _Scotch Drink_, that plenary libation of soul in honour of those cordials, especially the supreme national one, which are as a divine fuel nourishing the glow of happiness when friend meets friend. The epistles to David Sillar and Lapraik and Simpson (to which I have affixed titles for this occasion)[1] admit us directly into the presence of Burns in his familiar intercourse as the “social, friendly, honest man” beyond measure abundant. These were written while he was still an unprinted local poet, a man of mark among his neighbours, but marked also for misfortune and disgrace, and the future prospectless enough. But though he is cheering others on, and dauntless himself, we can divine that it is fast becoming the dauntlessness of desperation, the indifference of pride. What Nature has given him renders him more keenly conscious of what his lot in life denies, and the gifts and the lack between them are working together to sink this splendid misplaced being, half Apollo and half Pan, among the waste of humanity in whom the light of purpose has gone out. Then came the Edinburgh triumph, and it saved him at least from that. It opened new vistas, and promised a large future. The vistas closed and the promise was not kept; but in the course of being disappointed—in the course of encountering the successive misfortunes of the ten years remaining to him, who was then only twenty-seven—he added to his achievement nearly one-half of the whole. He wrote not only _Tam o’ Shanter_ and the thrice-noble _Lament for Glencairn_, but also the great bulk of his song work. And the result? Surely it is this: that all who read these pages to the end, to where the Muse of Scottish Song leaves him dreaming in the spence, must feel that the light in which she “fled away” has not itself fled, but remains for ever in his book, and he in the midst of it with the lyric crown still fresh from her hands.

WILLIAM MACDONALD.

FOOTNOTE:

[1] Namely, _The Riches of the Poor_, _An Offer of Friendship_, _An Exhortation to Davie_, _Poets for ever!_ and _The Bards of Ayr_. A book of selections being in its nature an anthology, in which all the contents are there upon their individual merits as poetry, it seems right that each should have a title that carries some reference to its subject-matter. I have ventured upon this innovation in one or two other cases, with results which, I hope, will commend themselves to the judicious.

And here a word may be said about the arrangement of the contents, which is not chronological, yet anything but haphazard. The intention has rather been to make it lyrical and vital. I conceive that a collection like this, which is virtually an anthology gathered from the domain of a single poet, should as nearly as possible be itself a poem. That is, it should be so composed, so put together, that the reader may pass from number to number in the sequence as easily and naturally as he would pass from verse to verse of a single poem: even more easily and naturally, perhaps, from a continually renewed sense of refreshment, of slightly changed animation. But this effect is not to be achieved without taking pains. An editor who aims at it must be keenly and even anxiously observant of many values—of values constituted by metrical quality, subject matter, moral mood and so forth—in all the varieties of each and in their interactions. He must try to maintain continuity (the continuity of unflagging animation, interest and enjoyment in the act of reading) through variety and relief, and even through the occasional sudden contrast which may express either a natural reaction and subsidence of mood, or an impetus of the poetic soul in fresh directions. Finally, while disregarding the mere time-order of composition (since the poem which best speaks the truth for a man’s forty-sixth year may well have been written at twenty-one) he must yet try to suggest something of the tone of the poet’s different life-periods, and these in their right order. If the attempt is at all successful, the resulting arrangement should not only do justice to each individual poem by a sympathetic setting, but should compass a general effect of unity and of personality. How far the series from _There was a Lad to Auld Lang Syne_ realises this ideal it is not for me to say. Other things besides the ideal had claims to be considered, such as the proposed scope of the book and the need to distribute the illustrations reasonably through the volume. But I may say that from point to point it has only been after many re-readings and searching comparisons that I have finally decided whether _this_ or _this_ or _this_ poem would most happily and economically follow _that_ one; regard being also had to others that were yet to come. Felicity in the metrical transition was, it will be seen, the value predominantly considered in the earlier pages, while towards the close (I speak of the _Songs and Lyrics_ section) there has been more conscious grouping of poems reinforcing one another in the expression or suggestion of a mood or colour-tone of the mind. I say predominantly; for both principles of arrangement, as well as those of relief and contrast, have been used throughout. Thus _Lassie wi’ the Lint-White Locks_, _The Posie_, _My Lady’s Gown_, and _The Daisy_ (pp. 41-4) have an element in common—a certain refinement and gentleness of feeling—which brings them within the same moral key, diverse as they are. They breathe of flowers, independently of speaking of them. But naturally the principle of grouping has been more particularly used to suggest what I have called the colour-tone of the poet’s mind at certain stages of his life, especially the later ones. And I permit myself to hope that the more the reader knows (understandingly) of Burns, the more will he find of what is essential and quintessential to any true account of the poet’s later days suggested or recalled by the successive groupings with which our first and main section draws to a close.

[_Note._—The following pages have been set up from the text of the Oxford Edition, for kind permission to use which thanks are due, and are heartily tendered, to Mr. Henry Frowde of the Oxford University Press].

Songs and Lyrics

THERE WAS A LAD

There was a lad was born in Kyle, But what’n a day o’ what’n a style I doubt it’s hardly worth the while To be sae nice wi’ Robin.

Robin was a rovin’ boy, Rantin’ rovin’, rantin’ rovin’; Robin was a rovin’ boy, Rantin’ rovin’ Robin.

Our monarch’s hindmost year but ane Was five-and-twenty days begun, ’Twas then a blast o’ Janwar win’ Blew hansel in on Robin.

The gossip keekit in his loof, Quo’ scho, Wha lives will see the proof, This waly boy will be nae coof, I think we’ll ca’ him Robin.

He’ll hae misfortunes great and sma’, But aye a heart aboon them a’; He’ll be a credit till us a’, We’ll a’ be proud o’ Robin.

But sure as three times three mak nine, I see by ilka score and line, This chap will dearly like our kin’, So leeze me on thee, Robin.

Robin was a rovin’ boy, Rantin’ rovin’, rantin’ rovin’; Robin was a rovin’ boy, Rantin’ rovin’ Robin.

MARY MORISON

O Mary, at thy window be, It is the wish’d, the trysted hour! Those smiles and glances let me see, That make the miser’s treasure poor: How blythely wad I bide the stoure, A weary slave frae sun to sun, Could I the rich reward secure, The lovely Mary Morison.

Yestreen, when to the trembling string The dance gaed thro’ the lighted ha’, To thee my fancy took its wing, I sat, but neither heard nor saw: Tho’ this was fair, and that was braw, And yon the toast of a’ the town, I sigh’d, and said amang them a’, ‘Ye are na Mary Morison.’

O Mary, canst thou wreck his peace, Wha for thy sake wad gladly die? Or canst thou break that heart of his, Whase only faut is loving thee? If love for love thou wilt na gie, At least be pity to me shown! A thought ungentle canna be The thought o’ Mary Morison.

THE BIRKS OF ABERFELDY

Now simmer blinks on flowery braes, And o’er the crystal streamlet plays, Come let us spend the lightsome days In the Birks of Aberfeldy.

Bonnie lassie, will ye go, Will ye go, will ye go, Bonnie lassie, will ye go To the Birks of Aberfeldy?

While o’er their heads the hazels hing, The little birdies blythely sing, Or lightly flit on wanton wing In the Birks of Aberfeldy.

The braes ascend like lofty wa’s The foaming stream deep-roaring fa’s, O’erhung wi’ fragrant spreading shaws— The Birks of Aberfeldy.

The hoary cliffs are crown’d wi’ flowers, White o’er the linns the burnie pours, And rising, weets wi’ misty showers The Birks of Aberfeldy.

Let fortune’s gifts at random flee, They ne’er shall draw a wish frae me, Supremely blest wi’ love and thee, In the Birks of Aberfeldy.

Bonnie lassie, will ye go, Will ye go, will ye go, Bonnie lassie, will ye go To the Birks of Aberfeldy?

TO A MOUSE, ON TURNING HER UP IN HER NEST WITH THE PLOUGH, NOVEMBER, 1785

Wee, sleekit, cow’rin’, tim’rous beastie, O what a panic’s in thy breastie! Thou need na start awa sae hasty, Wi’ bickering brattle! I wad be laith to rin an’ chase thee Wi’ murd’ring pattle!

I’m truly sorry man’s dominion Has broken Nature’s social union, An’ justifies that ill opinion Which makes thee startle At me, thy poor earth-born companion, An’ fellow-mortal!

I doubt na, whiles, but thou may thieve; What then? poor beastie, thou maun live! A daimen-icker in a thrave ’S a sma’ request: I’ll get a blessin’ wi’ the lave, And never miss’t!

Thy wee bit housie, too, in ruin! Its silly wa’s the win’s are strewin’! An’ naething, now, to big a new ane, O’ foggage green! An’ bleak December’s winds ensuin’, Baith snell an’ keen!

Thou saw the fields laid bare and waste, An’ weary winter comin’ fast, An’ cozie here, beneath the blast, Thou thought to dwell, Till crash! the cruel coulter past Out-thro’ thy cell.

That wee bit heap o’ leaves an’ stibble Has cost thee mony a weary nibble! Now thou’s turn’d out, for a’ thy trouble, But house or hald, To thole the winter’s sleety dribble, An’ cranreuch cauld!

But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane, In proving foresight may be vain: The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men Gang aft a-gley, An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain For promis’d joy.

Still thou art blest compar’d wi’ me! The present only toucheth thee: But oh! I backward cast my e’e On prospects drear! An’ forward tho’ I canna see, I guess an’ fear!

GO FETCH TO ME A PINT O’ WINE

Go fetch to me a pint o’ wine, An’ fill it in a silver tassie; That I may drink, before I go, A service to my bonnie lassie. The boat rocks at the pier o’ Leith, Fu’ loud the wind blaws frae the ferry, The ship rides by the Berwick-law, And I maun leave my bonnie Mary.

The trumpets sound, the banners fly, The glittering spears are rankèd ready; The shouts o’ war are heard afar, The battle closes thick and bloody; But it’s no the roar o’ sea or shore Wad mak me langer wish to tarry; Nor shout o’ war that’s heard afar, It’s leaving thee, my bonnie Mary.

MY LOVE IS LIKE A RED RED ROSE

My love is like a red red rose That’s newly sprung in June: My love is like the melodie That’s sweetly play’d in tune.

So fair art thou, my bonnie lass, So deep in love am I: And I will love thee still, my dear, Till a’ the seas gang dry.

Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear, And the rocks melt wi’ the sun: And I will love thee still, my dear, While the sands o’ life shall run.

And fare thee weel, my only love, And fare thee weel awhile! And I will come again, my love, Tho’ it were ten thousand mile.

BLYTHE AND MERRY

By Ochtertyre there grows the aik, On Yarrow banks the birken shaw; But Phemie was a bonnier lass Than braes o’ Yarrow ever saw.

Blythe, blythe and merry was she, Blythe was she but and ben: Blythe by the banks of Earn, And blythe in Glenturit glen.

Her looks were like a flower in May, Her smile was like a simmer morn; She trippèd by the banks of Earn As light’s a bird upon a thorn.

Her bonnie face it was as meek As ony lamb’s upon a lea; The evening sun was ne’er sae sweet As was the blink o’ Phemie’s e’e.