A DAY WITH THE POET BURNS

LONDON

HODDER & STOUGHTON

In the same Series.

A DAY WITH BURNS.

here are few figures which appeal more picturesquely to the imagination than that of the ploughman-poet—swarthy, stalwart, black-eyed,—striding along the furrow in the grey of a dreary dawn. Yet Burns was far from being a mere uncultured peasant, nor did he come of peasant stock. His forefathers were small yeoman farmers, who had risked themselves in the cause of the Young Pretender: they had a certain amount of family pride and family tradition. Robert Burns had been educated in small schools, by various tutors, and by his father, a man of considerable attainments. He had acquired some French and Latin, studied mensuration, and acquainted himself with a good deal of poetry and many theological and philosophical books.

So that the man who may be seen going out this dusky morning from his little farmstead of Ellisland near Dumfries—the dark and taciturn man in hodden grey and rough top boots—is not precisely a son of the soil. He is a hard worker in the field by dint of necessity, but his strenuous and impetuous mind is set upon other thoughts than the plough, as he drives his share along the Nithsdale uplands. It is exactly the season of the year that he delights in. "There is scarcely any earthly object," he has written, "which gives me more—I do not know if I should call it pleasure, but something that exalts me, something that enraptures me—than to walk in the sheltered side of a wood or high plantation on a cloudy winter's day, and hear the stormy wind howling among the trees, or raving over the plains…. I take a peculiar pleasure in the season of winter, more than the rest of the year…. There is something that raises the mind to a serious sublimity, favourable to everything great and noble." And there is also something secretly akin to the poet's wild and passionate soul. For

this is not a happy man, but an embittered one, and ready to "rail on Lady Fortune in good set terms." He takes the storm-wind for an interpreter:

His brief meteoric reign of popularity in Edinburgh is now at an end: from being a popular idol of society, caressed and fêted, he has been let to sink back into his native obscurity. And, being poignantly proud, he suffers accordingly. The consciousness of genius burns within him, a flame that devours rather than illumines: and he finds vent for his bitterness, as he treads the clogging fallow, in the immortal lines: A Man's a Man for a' that.

Presently, however, the sweet influences of the clear air, the pleasant smell of upturned earth, the wholesome sight and sounds of morning, soothe the poet's rugged spirit: he becomes attuned to the calmer present, and forgetful of the feverish past. Burns has never been given to depicting the shows and forms of nature for their own sake: he only uses them as a stage for the setting of a central human interest. In short, he "cares little," it has been said, "for the natural picturesqueness in itself: the moral picturesqueness touches him more nearly." And all sentient life is dear to him—not human life alone. Hence, one sees him wince and shrink, as his ploughshare destroys the daisy.

Or he becomes thoughtful and abstracted beyond his wont, after turning up a mouse's nest with the plough; and sternly recalls his "gaudsman" or ploughboy, who would kill the little creature out of pure thoughtlessness. He muses upon the irony of fate: and the world is the richer for his musings.

But nothing is too trivial to evade this large and universal sympathy of his. "Not long ago, one morning, as I was out in the fields sowing some grass seeds, I heard the burst of a shot from a neighbouring plantation, and presently a poor little wounded hare came crippling by me. You will guess my indignation at the inhuman fellow who could shoot a hare at this season, when they all of them have young ones." It is on record that he threatened to throw the culprit—a neighbouring farmer's son—into the Nith to reward his inhumanity.

The ploughing is finished for the day, but the poet must now needs betake himself to those official duties as an exciseman, which are perhaps even less congenial to him than agricultural pursuits. He has to cover some two hundred miles' riding every week; he is forced to earn a scanty living for himself and his family, by incessant physical and mental work. The iron has entered into his soul—here and there it crops up in hard metallic outbursts: though for the most part, he is unrivalled in spontaneous gaiety of song. And old sorrows come upon him as he rides alone…. He considers the present time to be the happiest of his life. He has an excellent wife, and bonnie bairns: friends many and faithful: comparative immunity from financial troubles: a popularity such as no other Scottish poet has attained; yet memories of the past remain, which are never to be obliterated in oblivion. And chief among these is the greatest sorrow that has befallen him—the loss of his one true love, his cherished Highland Mary.

Burns has been an easy and inconstant lover all his days: devoted, for the nonce, to every girl he met. But Mary was on a pinnacle apart—unequalled, irreplaceable; and still he is continually dreaming of her—dreaming in tender and melodious verse.

But now, hard upon the scent of smugglers across the Nithsdale moors, exchanging cheery greetings with cottagers here and there, the tramp of his horse's hoofs inspires him to a gayer measure. The clouds, which have overhung his mind all the forenoon, roll away: and his mercurial spirit seizes any pleasure that the moment may afford. The nearest to hand is the ready ripple of rhythm in light short songs that fairly bubble over with gaiety. For there is nothing of the midnight oil about Robert Burns—his poems come swiftly and spontaneously to him, as naturally as music to a blackbird: they have indeed the same quality as the carols of birds—careless, happy, tuneful. Any casual impression sets our poet singing: the mere glance of a merry blue eye at a window, and he is away on the praises of one immediately present lassie, or of innumerable others absent.

Sometimes a flower in the hedgerow opens out to him a new and exquisite signification.

Or, as he meets the wind—still bleak, though now it is midday,—a cold wind charged with latent snow,—its chilly breaths are crystallized into a very jewel of song.

Presently he turns his horse's head towards Dumfries. It is market-day in the town, and a score of friends give him clamorous welcome. They may not fully appreciate Rob's mental equipments, but they greet him as the best of good companions: and in a little while he forms the leading spirit of some excited group, discussing matters social and political. For Burns takes the keenest interest in current events: and, though most of his poems may be of a more ephemeral interest, he is capable, when deeply stirred, of expressing himself with a stern and lofty patriotism. It may be inspired by the events of the present: it often is evoked by glories of the past.

Seated in the inn among his cronies, "as market-days are wearing late," the dour and bitter looks of the poet are exchanged for glowing eyes and laughing lips, while he recites some of the lines which he has wedded to old and familiar melodies. As Moore, a little later, secured for the Irish airs a world-wide reputation, by supplying them with words of a more popular character than their own—so Burns re-wrote the songs of his country. Thousands of people who never heard of "The Highland Watch's Farewell" have carolled that melody to his delightful verses,

As time wears by, Burns pulls out a manuscript from his pocket, and reads his latest poem to a hilarious audience: a very masterpiece, they acclaim it. The legend and the scenery are awhile familiar to them: but they have never heard the tale told thus before, as Burns has immortalized it in "Tam o' Shanter."

But now it is time that Burns, like his hero, should take the homeward road. He calls for his horse, parts from his boisterous comrades, and rides out into the wintry evening. Nithsdale is a land of lovely sunsets: and against the rose and gold of heaven, the poet sees the homely cottage-smoke of earth, thin spirals of blue vapour, speaking of happy hearths and labour ended. It is several years since Burns, standing with Douglas Stewart upon the Braid Hills, declared that to him the worthiest object in the whole bright morning landscape was the cluster of smoking cottages. But still he regards them with affection and enjoyment: and chiefly his eyes are bent towards that quiet homestead which holds his own dear folk. All the peace which that stormy heart can find is set and centred there: despite all previous fugitive fancies for Jessie, and Peggie, and Phemie, and the rest, he has found calm happiness with his Jean, the most devoted of wives.

She comes out into the twilight to meet him, and his emotion shapes itself, on the instant, into song.

The servants, sitting at the same table, according to Scottish farm custom, share his simple evening meal: and subsequently, before the children's bedtime, the master speaks with seriousness to his household, and reads aloud some passages from the Holy Book.

Now, in the quiet house, the man at last is free to take up his pen. He is writing hard, daily, or rather nightly: every week sees a parcel of manuscript despatched to his publisher. The thoughts which have crowded tumultuously upon him all day long, may at last be set down and conserved: for poetry, as Wordsworth says, "is emotion remembered in tranquillity." The grave and swarthy face bends above the paper in the candlelight—varying expressions chase each other across the mobile mouth and eyes. Sometimes the theme is one of poignant pathos.

Again the music changes to the sprightliest vivaciousness, to tell how "last May a braw wooer came down the lang glen," or to sing the "dainty distress" of the maiden enamoured of Tam Glen.

But here comes a knock at the door, to stop the flow of inspiration: it is not an unwelcome visitor, but an old friend, who, returning after many years from foreign parts, has learned of "Rob's" amazing leap into fame. Strangers, drawn by curiosity and admiration, are not infrequent visitors: "It was something to have dined or supped in the company of Burns." But this is a different matter: and the warm impulsive heart responds to it, in words which have never been forgotten.

It is late, very late, when the visitor departs: the stars are frosty, the ground hard. The spell of newly-roused remembrances lies heavy still upon Burns's heart: and as he turns to rest, and sees the peaceful sleeping forms of his wife and little children, tender and calm desires well up within him. He can conceive no higher happiness than comes of a serene old age, in the company of those dear ones: and a picture rises before him of old folk gently descending to a longer rest, side by side together.

Printed by Percy Lund, Humphries & Co., Ltd., Bradford and London.

The words belore and bedtine were changed to before and bedtime in the phrase: before the children's bedtime The word divnie was corrected to divine in the line: But chiefly, in their hearts with grace divine preside.