Robert Burns
The peasant poet of Scotland.

by Robert G. Ingersoll
(1878)

From The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll (Dresden Edition, 1900–1902), Volume 3.
Source: https://thegreatagnostic.com/works/robert-burns/
Public domain. CC0 / Public Domain Mark 1.0.

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A facsimile of the original manuscript as written by Colonel Ingersoll
in the Burns' cottage at Ayr, August 19, 1878.

[Illustration: Burn's Manuscript]

We have met to-night to honor the memory of a poet—possibly the next to
the greatest that has ever written in our language. I would place one
above him, and only one—Shakespeare.

It may be well enough at the beginning to inquire, What is a poet? What
is poetry?

Every one has some idea of the poetic, and this idea is born of his
experience—of his education—of his surroundings.

There have been more nations than poets.

Many people suppose that poetry is a kind of art depending upon certain
rules, and that it is only necessary to find out these rules to be a
poet. But these rules have never been found. The great poet follows them
unconsciously. The great poet seems as unconscious as Nature, and the
product of the highest art seems to have been felt instead of thought.

The finest definition perhaps that has been given is this:

"As nature unconsciously produces that which appears to be the result
of consciousness, so the greatest artist consciously produces that which
appears the unconscious result."

Poetry must rest on the experience of men—the history of heart and
brain. It must sit by the fireside of the heart. It must have to do with
this world, with the place in which we live, with the men and women we
know, with their loves, their hopes, their fears and their joys.

After all, we care nothing about gods and goddesses, or folks with
wings.

The cloud-compelling Jupiters, the ox-eyed Junos, the feather-heeled
Mercurys, or the Minervas that leaped full-armed from the thick skull of
some imaginary god, are nothing to us. We know nothing of their fears or
loves, and for that reason, the poetry that deals with them, no matter
how ingenious it may be, can never touch the human heart.

I was taught that Milton was a wonderful poet, and above all others
sublime. I have read Milton once. Few have read him twice.

With splendid words, with magnificent mythological imagery, he musters
the heavenly militia—puts epaulets on the shoulders of God, and
describes the Devil as an artillery officer of the highest rank.

Then he describes the battles in which immortals undertake the
impossible task of killing each other.

Take this line:
    "Flying with indefatigable wings over the vast abrupt."

This is called sublime, but what does it mean?

We have been taught that Dante was a wonderful poet.

He described with infinite minuteness the pangs and agonies endured by
the damned in the torture—dungeons of God.

The vicious twins of superstition—malignity and solemnity—struggle for
the mastery in his revengeful lines.

But there was one good thing about Dante: he had the courage, and what
might be called the religious democracy, to see a pope in hell.

That is something to be thankful for.

So, the sonnets of Petrarch are as unmeaning as the promises of
candidates. They are filled not with genuine passion, but with the
feelings that lovers are supposed to have.

Poetry cannot be written by rule; it is nota trade, or a profession. Let
the critics lay down the laws, and the true poet will violate them all.

By rule you can make skeletons, but you cannot clothe them with flesh,
put blood in their veins, thoughts in their eyes, and passions in their
hearts.

This can be done only by following the impulses of the heart, the winged
fancies of the brain—by wandering from paths and roads, keeping step
with the rhythmic ebb and flow of the throbbing blood.

In the olden time in Scotland, most of the so-called poetry was written
by pedagogues and parsons—gentlemen who found out what little they knew
of the living world by reading the dead languages—by studying epitaphs
in the cemeteries of literature.

They knew nothing of any life that they thought poetic. They kept as far
from the common people as they could. They wrote countless verses, but
no poems. They tried to put metaphysics, that is to say, Calvinism, in
poetry.

As a matter of fact, a Calvinist cannot be a poet. Calvinism takes all
the poetry out of the world.

If the existence of the Calvinistic, the Christian, hell could be
demonstrated, another poem never could be written. .

In those days they made poetry about geography, and the beauties of the
Scotch Kirk, and even about law.

The critics have always been looking for mistakes, not beauties—not for
the perfection of expression and feeling. They would object to the lark
and nightingale because they do not sing by note—to the clouds because
they are not square.

At one time it was thought that scenery, the grand in nature, made the
poet. We now know that the poet makes the scenery. Holland has produced
far more genius than the Alps. Where nature is prodigal—where the crags
tower above the clouds—man is overcome, or overawed. In England
and Scotland the hills are low, and there is nothing in the scenery
calculated to rouse poetic blood, and yet these countries have produced
the greatest literature of all time.

The truth is that poets and heroes make the scenery. The place where
man has died for man is grander than all the snow-crowned summits of the
world.

A poem is something like a mountain stream that flashes in light, then
lost in shadow, leaps with a kind of wild joy into the abyss, emerges
victorious, and winding runs amid meadows, lingers in quiet places,
holding within its breast the hills and vales and clouds—then running
by the cottage door, babbling of joy, and murmuring delight, then
sweeping on to join its old mother, the sea.

Thousands, millions of men live poems, but do not write them; but every
great poem has been lived.

I say to-night that every good and self-denying man, every one who lives
and labors for those he loves, for wife and child, is living a poem. The
loving mother rocking a cradle, singing the slumber song, lives a poem
pure and tender as the dawn; the man who bares his breast to shot and
shell lives a poem, and all the great men of the world, and all the
brave and loving women have been poets in action, whether they have
written one word or not. The poor woman of the tenement, sewing, blinded
by tears, lives a poem holier, it may be, than the fortunate can know.
The pioneers—the home builders, the heroes of toil, are all poets, and
their deeds are filled with the pathos and perfection of the highest
art.

But to-night we are going to talk of a poet—one who poured out his soul
in song. How does a country become great? By producing great poets. Why
is it that Scotland, when the roll of nations is called, can stand up
and proudly answer "here"? Because Robert Burns has lived. It is Robert
Burns that put Scotland in the front rank.

On the 25th of January, 1759, Robert Burns was born. William Burns,
a gardener, his father; Agnes Brown, his mother. He was born near the
little town of Ayr, in a little cottage made of mud and thatched
with straw. From the first, poverty was his portion,—"Poverty, the
half-sister of Death." The father struggled as best he could, but at
last overcome more by misfortunes than by disease, died in 1784, at the
age of 63. Robert attended school at Alloway Mill, and had been taught
a little by John Murdock, and some by his father. That was his
education—with this exception, that whenever nature produces a genius,
the old mother holds him close to her heart and whispers secrets to his
ears that others do not know.

He had spent most of his time working on a farm, raising very poor
crops, getting deeper and deeper into debt, until finally the death of
his father left him to struggle as best he might for himself.

In the year 1759, Scotland was emerging from the darkness and gloom of
Calvinism. The attention of the people had been drawn from the other
world, or rather from the other worlds, to the affairs of this. The
commercial spirit, the interests of trade, were winning men from the
discussion of predestination and the sacred decrees of God. Mechanics
and manufacturers were undermining theology. The influence of the clergy
was gradually diminishing, and the beggarly elements of this life were
beginning to attract the attention of the Scotch. The people at that
time were mostly poor. They had made but little progress in art and
science. They had been engaged for many years fighting for their
political or theological rights, or to destroy the rights of others.
They had great energy, great natural sense, and courage without limit,
and it may be well enough to add that they were as obstinate as brave.

Several countries have had a metaphysical peasantry. It is true of parts
of Switzerland about the time of Calvin. In Holland, after the people
had suffered all the cruelties that Spain could inflict, they began to
discuss as to foreordination and free will, and upon these questions
destroyed each other. The same is true of New England, and peculiarly
true of Scotland—a metaphysical peasantry—men who lived in mud houses
thatched with straw and discussed the motives of God and the means by
which the Infinite Being was to accomplish his ends.

For many years the Scotch had been ruled by the clergy. The power of
the Scotch preacher was unlimited. It so happened that the religion of
Scotland became synonymous with patriotism, and those who were fighting
Scotland were also fighting her religion. This drew priest and people
together; and the priest naturally took advantage of the situation. They
not only determined upon the policy to be pursued by the people, but
they went into every detail of life. And in this world there has
never been established a more odious tyranny or a more odious form of
government than that of the Scotch Kirk.

A few men had made themselves famous—David Hume, Adam Smith, Doctor
Hugh Blair, he of the grave, Beattie and Ramsay, Reid and Robertson—but
the great body of the people were orthodox to the last drop of their
blood. Nothing seemed to please them like attending church, like hearing
sermons. Before Communion Sabbath they frequently met on Friday, having
two or three sermons on that day, three or four on Saturday, more if
possible on Sunday, and wound up with a kind of gospel spree on Monday.
They loved it. I think it was Heinrich Heine who said, "It is not true,
it is not true that the damned in hell are compelled to hear all the
sermons preached on earth." He says this is not true. This shows that
there is some mercy even in hell. They were infinitely interested in
these questions.

And yet, the people were social, fond of games, of outdoor sports,
full of song and story, and no folks ever passed the cup with a happier
smile.

Sometimes I have thought that they were saved from the gloom of
Calvinism by the use of intoxicating liquors. It may be that John
Barleycorn redeemed the Scotch and saved them from the divine dyspepsia
of the Calvinistic creed. So, too, it may be that the Puritan was saved
by rum, and the Hollander by schnapps. Yet, in spite of the gloom of
the creed, in spite of the climate of mists and fogs, and the maniac
winters, the songs of Scotland are the sweetest and the tenderest in all
the world.

Robert Burns was a peasant—a ploughman—a poet. Why is it that millions
and millions of men and women love this man? He was a Scotchman, and all
the tendrils of his heart struck deep in Scotland's soil. He voiced the
ideals of the best and greatest of his race and blood. And yet he is
as dear to the citizens of this great Republic as to Scotia's sons and
daughters.

All great poetry has a national flavor. It tastes of the soil. No matter
how great it is, how wide, how universal, the flavor of locality is
never lost. Burns made common life beautiful. He idealized the sun-burnt
girls who worked in the fields. He put honest labor above titled
idleness. He made a cottage far more poetic than a palace. He painted
the simple joys and ecstasies and raptures of sincere love. He put
native sense above the polish of schools.

We love him because he was independent, sturdy, self-poised, social,
generous, susceptible, thrilled by a look, by a touch, full of pity,
carrying the sorrows of others in his heart, even those of
animals; hating to see anybody suffer, and lamenting the death of
everything—even of trees and flowers. We love him because he was a
natural democrat, and hated tyranny in every form.

We love him because he was always on the side of the people, feeling the
throb of progress.

Burns read but little, had but few books; had but a little of what
is called education; had only an outline of history, a little of
philosophy, in its highest sense. His library consisted of the _Life of
Hannibal, the History of Wallace, Ray's Wisdom of God_, Stackhouse's
History of the Bible; two or three plays of Shakespeare, Ferguson's
Scottish Poems, Pope's Homer, Shenstone, McKenzie's Man of Feeling
and Ossian.

Burns was a man of genius. He was like a spring—something that suggests
no labor.

A spring seems to be a perpetual free gift of nature. There is no
thought of toil. The water comes whispering to the pebbles without
effort. There is no machinery, no pipes, no pumps, no engines, no
water-works, nothing that suggests expense or trouble. So a natural
poet is, when compared with the educated, with the polished, with the
industrious.

Burns seems to have done everything without effort. His poems wrote
themselves. He was overflowing with sympathies, with suggestions, with
ideas, in every possible direction. There is no midnight oil. There is
nothing of the student—no suggestion of their having been re-written
or re-cast. There is in his heart a poetic April and May, and all the
poetic seeds burst into sudden life. In a moment the seed is a plant,
and the plant is in blossom, and the fruit is given to the world.

He looks at everything from a natural point of view; and he writes of
the men and women with whom he was acquainted. He cares nothing for
mythology, nothing for the legends of the Greeks and Romans. He draws
but little from history. Everything that he uses is within his reach,
and he knows it from centre to circumference. All his figures and
comparisons are perfectly natural. He does not endeavor to make angels
of fine ladies.

He takes the servant girls with whom he is acquainted, the dairy
maids that he knows. He puts wings upon them and makes the very angels
envious.

And yet this man, so natural, keeping his cheek so close to the
breast of nature, strangely enough thought that Pope and Churchill and
Shenstone and Thomson and Lyttelton and Beattie were great poets.

His first poem was addressed to Nellie Kilpatrick, daughter of the
blacksmith. He was in love with Ellison Begbie, offered her his heart
and was refused. She was a servant, working in a family and living on
the banks of the Cessnock. Jean Armour, his wife, was the daughter of a
tailor, and Highland Mary, a servant—a milk-maid.

He did not make women of goddesses, but he made goddesses of women.

Poet of Love

Burns was the poet of love. To him woman was divine. In the light of
her eyes he stood transfigured. Love changed this peasant to a king;
the plaid became a robe of purple; the ploughman became a poet; the poor
laborer an inspired lover.

In his "Vision" his native Muse tells the story of his verse:
    "When youthful Love, warm-blushing strong,
    Keen-shivering shot thy nerves along,
    Those accents, grateful to thy tongue,
    Th' adored Name,
    I taught thee how to pour in song,
    To soothe thy flame."

Ah, this light from heaven: how it has purified the heart of man!

Was there ever a sweeter song than "Bonnie Doon"?
    "Thou'lt break my heart thou bonnie bird
    That sings beside thy mate,
    For sae I sat and sae I sang,
    And wist na o' my fate."

or,
    "O, my luve's like a red, red rose
    That's newly sprung in June;
    O, my luve's like the melodie
    That's sweetly play'd in tune."

It would consume days to give the intense and tender lines—lines wet
with the heart's blood, lines that throb and sigh and weep, lines that
glow like flames, lines that seem to clasp and kiss.

But the most perfect love-poem that I know—pure the tear of
gratitude—is "To Mary in Heaven:"
    "Thou lingering star, with less'ning ray,
    That lov'st to greet the early morn,
    Again thou usher'st in the day
    My Mary from my soul was torn.
    O Mary! dear departed shade!
    Where is thy place of blissful rest?
    Seest thou thy lover lowly laid?
    Hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast?
    "That sacred hour can I forget?
    Can I forget the hallow'd grove
    Where, by the winding Ayr, we met,
    To live one day of parting love?
    Eternity will not efface
    Those records dear of transports past;
    Thy image at our last embrace;
    Ah! little thought we 'twas our last!
    "Ayr, gurgling, kiss'd his pebbled shore,
    O'erhung with wild woods, thick'ning green;
    The fragrant birch, and hawthorn hoar,
    Twin'd am'rous round the raptur'd scene.
    The flowers sprang wanton to be prest,
    The birds sang love on ev'ry spray,
    Till too, too soon, the glowing west
    Proclaim'd the speed of wingèd day.
    "Still o'er these scenes my mem'ry wakes,
    And fondly broods with miser care!
    Time but the impression stronger makes,
    As streams their channels deeper wear.
    My Mary, dear departed shade!
    Where is thy blissful place of rest?
    Seest thou thy lover lowly laid?
    Hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast?"

Above all the daughters of luxury and wealth, above all of Scotland's
queens rises this pure and gentle girl made deathless by the love of
Robert Burns.

Poet 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 owre a linn the burnie plays,
    As thro' the glen it wimpl't;
    Whyles round a rocky scaur it strays;
    Whyles in a wiel it dimpl't;
    Whyles glitter's to the nightly rays,
    Wi' bickering, dancing dazzle;
    Whyles cookit underneath the braes,
    Below the spreading hazel,
    Unseen that night."

Or this from Tam O'Shanter:
    "But pleasures are like poppies spread,
    You seize the flow'r, its bloom is shed,
    Or, like the snow falls in the river,
    A moment white—then melts forever;
    Or, like the borealis race,
    That flit ere you can point their place;
    Or, like the rainbow's lovely form,
    Evanishing amid the storm."

This:
    "As in the bosom of the stream
    The moon-beam dwells at dewy e'en;
    So, trembling, pure, was tender love,
    Within the breast o' bonnie Jean."
    "The sun had clos'd the winter day,
    The Curlers quat their roarin play,
    An' hunger's Maukin ta'en her way
    To kail-yards green,
    While faithless snaws ilk step betray
    Whare she had been."
    "O, sweet are Coila's haughs an' woods,
    When lintwhites chant amang the buds,
    And jinkin' hares, in amorous whids,
    Their loves enjoy,
    While thro' the braes the cushat croons
    Wi' wailfu' cry!"
    "Ev'n winter bleak has charms to me
    When winds rave thro' the naked tree;
    Or frosts on hills of Ochiltree
    Are hoary gray;
    Or blinding drifts wild-furious flee,
    Dark'ning the day!"

This of the lark and daisy—the daintiest and nearest perfect in our
language:
    "Alas! it's no' thy neebor sweet,
    The bonnie Lark, companion meet!
    Bending thee 'mang the dewy weet!
    Wi' spreckl'd breast,
    When upward-springing, blythe, to greet
    The purpling east."

A Real Democrat

He was in every fibre of his being a sincere democrat. He was a believer
in the people—in the sacred rights of man. He believed that honest
peasants were superior to titled parasites. He knew the so-called
"gentrv" of his time.

In one of his letters to Dr. Moore is this passage: "It takes a few
dashes into the world to give the young great man that proper, decent,
unnoticing disregard for the poor, insignificant, stupid devils—the
mechanics and peasantry around him—who were born in the same village."

He knew the infinitely cruel spirit of caste—a spirit that despises the
useful—the children of toil—those who bear the burdens of the world.
    "If I'm design'd yon lordling's slave,
    By nature's law design'd,
    Why was an independent wish
    E'er planted in my mind?
    If not, why am I subject to .
    His cruelty, or scorn?
    Or why has man the will and pow'r
    To make his fellow mourn?"

Against the political injustice of his time—against the artificial
distinctions among men by which the lowest were regarded as the
highest—he protested in the great poem, "A man's a man for a' that,"
every line of which came like lava from his heart.
    "Is there, for honest poverty,
    That hangs his head, and a' that?
    The coward-slave, we pass him by,
    We dare be poor for a' that!
    For a' that, and a' that,
    Our toils obscure, and a' that;
    The rank is but the guinea stamp;
    The man's the gowd for a' that."
    "What tho' on hamely fare we dine,
    Wear hodden-gray, and a' that;
    Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine,
    A man's a man for a' that.
    For a' that, and a' that,
    Their tinsel show, and a' that;
    The honest man, tho' e'er sae poor,
    Is king o' men for a' that."
    "Ye see yon birkie, ca'd a lord,
    Wha struts, and stares, and a' that;
    Tho' hundreds worship at his word,
    He's but a coof for a' that;
    For a' that, and a' that,
    His riband, star, and a' that,
    The man' o' independent mind,
    He looks and laughs at a' that."
    "A prince can mak' a belted knight,
    A marquis, duke, and a' that;
    But an honest man's aboon his might,
    Guid faith he mauna fa' that!
    For a' that, and a' that,
    Their dignities, and a' that,
    The pith o' sense, and pride o' worth,
    Are higher ranks than a' that.
    "Then let us pray that come it may,
    As come it will for a' that;
    That sense and worth, o'er a' the earth,
    May bear the gree and a' that.
    For a' that, and a' that;
    It's cornin' yet for a' that
    That man to man, the warld o'er,
    Shall brithers be for a' that."

No grander declaration of independence was ever uttered. It stirs
the blood like a declaration of war. It is the apotheosis of honesty,
independence, sense and worth. And it is a prophecy of that better day
when men will be brothers the world over.

His Theology

Burns was superior in heart and brain to the theologians of his time.
He knew that the creed of Calvin was infinitely cruel and absurd, and he
attacked it with every weapon that his brain could forge.

He was not awed by the clergy, and he cared nothing for what was called
"authority." He insisted on thinking for himself. Sometimes he faltered,
and now and then, fearing that some friend might take offence, he would
say or write a word in favor of the Bible, and sometimes he praised the
Scriptures in words of scorn.

He laughed at the dogma of eternal pain—at hell as described by the
preacher:
    "A vast, unbottom'd, boundless pit,
    Fill'd fou o' lowin' brunstane,
    Wha's ragin' flame an' scorchin' heat
    Wad melt the hardest whun-stane!
    The half asleep start up wi' fear,
    An' think they hear it roarin',
    When presently it does appear,
    'Twas but some neebor snorin'.
    Asleep that day."

The dear old doctrine that man is totally depraved, that morality is a
snare—a flowery path leading to perdition—excited the indignation of
Burns. He put the doctrine in verse:
    "Morality, thou deadly bane,
    Thy tens o' thousands thou hast slain!
    Vain is his hope, whose stay and trust is
    In moral mercy, truth and justice."
    He understood the hypocrites of his day:
    "Hypocrisy, in mercy spare it!
    That holy robe, O dinna tear it!
    Spare't for their sakes wha aften wear it,
    The lads in black;
    But your curst wit, when it comes near it,
    Rives't aff their back."
    "Then orthodoxy yet may prance,
    And Learning in a woody dance,
    And that fell cur ca'd Common Sense,
    That bites sae sair,
    Be banish'd owre the seas to France;
    Let him bark there."
    "They talk religion in their mouth;
    They talk o' mercy, grace, an' truth,
    For what? to gie their malice skouth On some puir wight,
    An' hunt him down, o'er right an' ruth,
    To ruin straight."
    "Doctor Mac, Doctor Mac,
    Ye should stretch on a rack,
    To strike evil doers wi' terror;
    To join faith and sense Upon any pretence,
    Was heretic damnable error,
    Doctor Mac,
    Was heretic damnable error."

But the greatest, the sharpest, the deadliest, the keenest, the wittiest
thing ever said or written against Calvinism is Holy Willie's Prayer:—
    "O Thou, wha in the Heavens dost dwell,
    Wha, as it pleases best thysel',
    Sends ane to heaven and ten to hell,
    A' for thy glory,
    And no for onie guid or ill
    They've done afore thee!
    "I bless and praise thy matchless might,
    When thousands thou has left in night,
    That I am here afore thy sight
    For gifts an' grace,
    A burnin' an' a shinin' light,
    To a' this place.
    "What was I, or my generation,
    That I should get sic exaltation?
    I, wha deserve sic just damnation,
    For broken laws,
    Five thousand years 'fore my creation,
    Thro' Adam's cause?
    "When frae my mither's womb I fell,
    Thou might hae plunged me into hell,
    To gnash my gums, to weep and wail,
    In burnin' lake,
    Where damnèd devils roar and yell,
    Chained to a stake.
    "Yet I am here a chosen sample,
    To show Thy grace is great and ample;
    I'm here a pillar in Thy temple,
    Strong as a rock,
    A guide, a buckler, an example
    To a' Thy flock."

In this poem you will find the creed stated just as it is—with
fairness and accuracy—and at the same time stated so perfectly that its
absurdity fills the mind with inextinguishable laughter.

In this poem Burns nailed Calvinism to the cross, put it on the rack,
subjected it to every instrument of torture, flayed it alive, burned it
at the stake, and scattered its ashes to the winds.

In 1787 Burns wrote this curious letter to Miss Chalmers:

"I have taken tooth and nail to the Bible, and have got through the five
books of Moses and half way in Joshua.

"It is really a glorious book."

This must have been written in the spirit of Voltaire.

Think of Burns, with his loving, tender heart, half way in Joshua,
standing in blood to his knees, surrounded by the mangled bodies of old
men, women and babes, the swords of the victors dripping with innocent
blood, shouting—"This is really a glorious sight."

A letter written on the seventh of March, 1788, contains the clearest,
broadest and most philosophical statement of the religion of Burns to be
found in his works:

"An honest man has nothing to fear. If we lie down in the grave, the
whole man a piece of broken machinery, to moulder with the clods of the
valley—be it so; at least there is an end of pain and care, woes
and wants. If that part of us called Mind does survive the apparent
destruction of the man, away with old-wife prejudices and tales!

"Every age and every nation has a different set of stories; and, as the
many are always weak, of consequence they have often, perhaps always,
been deceived.

"A man conscious of having acted an honest part among his fellow
creatures, even granting that he may have been the sport at times of
passions and instincts, he goes to a great Unknown Being, who could have
had no other end in giving him existence but to make him happy; who gave
him those passions and instincts and well knows their force.

"These, my worthy friend, are my ideas.

"It becomes a man of sense to think for himself, particularly in a case
where all men are equally interested, and where, indeed, all men are
equally in the dark."

"Religious nonsense is the most nonsensical nonsense."

"Why has a religious turn of mind always a tendency to narrow and harden
the heart?"

"All my fears and cares are for this world."

We have grown tired of gods and goddesses in art. Milton's heavenly
militia excites our laughter. Light-houses have driven sirens from the
dangerous coasts. We have found that we do not depend on the imagination
for wonders—there are millions of miracles under our feet.

Nothing can be more marvelous than the common and everyday facts of
life. The phantoms have been cast aside. Men and women are enough for
men and women. In their lives is all the tragedy and all the comedy that
they can comprehend.

The painter no longer crowds his canvas with the winged and
impossible—he paints life as he sees it, people as he knows them, and
in whom he is interested. "The Angelus," the perfection of pathos, is
nothing but two peasants bending their heads in thankfulness as they
hear the solemn sound of the distant bell—two peasants, who have
nothing to be thankful for—nothing but weariness and want, nothing but
the crusts that they soften with their tears—nothing. And yet as you
look at that picture you feel that they have something besides to be
thankful for—that they have life, love, and hope—and so the distant
bell makes music in their simple hearts.

Let me give you the difference between culture and nature—between
educated talent and real genius.

A little while ago one of the great poets died. I was reading some of
his volumes and during the same period was reading a little from Robert
Burns. And the difference between these two poets struck me forcibly.

Tennyson was a piece of rare china decorated by the highest art.

Burns was made of honest, human clay, moulded by sympathy and love.

Tennyson dwelt in his fancy, for the most part, with kings and queens,
with lords and ladies, with knights and nobles.

Burns lingered by the fireside of the poor and humble, in the thatched
cottage of the peasant, with the imprisoned and despised. He loved men
and women in spite of their titles, and without regard to the outward.
Through robes and rags he saw and loved the man.

Tennyson was touched by place and power, the insignia given by chance or
birth. As he grew old he grew narrower, lost interest in the race, and
gave his heart to the class to which he had been lowered as a reward for
melodious flattery.

Burns broadened and ripened with the flight of his few years. His
sympathies widened and increased to the last.

Tennyson had the art born of intellectual taste, of the sense of mental
proportion, knowing the color of adjectives and the gradations of
emphasis. His pictures were born in his brain, exquisitely shaded by
details, carefully wrought by painful and conscious art.

Burns's brain was the servant of his heart. His melody was a rhythm
taught by love. He was touched by the miseries, the injustice, the agony
of his time. While Tennyson wrote of the past—of kings long dead, of
ladies who had been dust for many centuries, Burns melted with his love
the walls of caste—the cruel walls that divide the rich and the poor.

Tennyson celebrated the birth of royal babes, the death of the titled
useless; gave wings to degraded dust, wearing the laurels given by those
who lived upon the toil of men whom they despised. Burns poured poems
from his heart, filled with tears and sobs for the suffering poor; poems
that helped to break the chains of millions; poems that the enfranchised
love to repeat; poems that liberty loves to hear.

Tennyson was the poet of the past, of the twilight, of the sunset, of
decorous regret, of the vanished glories of barbarous times, of the
age of chivalry in which great nobles clad in steel smote to death with
battle axe and sword the unarmed peasants of the field.

Burns was the poet of the dawn, glad that the night was fading from
the east. He kept his face toward the sunrise, caring nothing for the
midnight of the past, but loved with all the depth and sincerity of his
nature the few great souls—the lustrous stars—that darkness cannot
quench.

Tennyson was surrounded with what gold can give, touched with the
selfishness of wealth. He was educated at Oxford, and had what are
called the advantages of his time, and in maturer years was somewhat
swayed by the spirit of caste, by the descendants of the ancient
Pharisees, and at last became a lord.

Burns had but little knowledge of the world. What he knew was taught
him by his sympathies. Being a genius, he absorbed the good and noble
of which he heard or dreamed, and thus he happily outgrew the smaller
things with which he came in contact, and journeyed toward the
great—the wider world, until he reached the end.

Tennyson was what is called religious. He believed in the divinity of
decorum, not falling on his face before the Eternal King, but bowing
gracefully, as all lords should, while uttering thanks for favors partly
undeserved, and thanks more fervid still for those to come.

Burns had the deepest and the tenderest feelings in his heart. The
winding stream, the flowering shrub, the shady vale—these were trysting
places where the real God met those he loved, and where his spirit
prompted thoughts and words of thankfulness and praise, took from their
hearts the dross of selfishness and hate, leaving the gold of love.

In the religion of Burns, form was nothing, creed was nothing, feeling
was everything. He had the religious climate of the soul, the April that
receives the seed, the June of blossom, and the month of harvest.

Burns was a real poet of nature. He put fields and woods in his lines.
There were principles like oaks, and there were thoughts, hints and
suggestions as shy as violets beneath the withered leaves. There were
the warmth of home, the social virtues born of equal state, that touched
the heart and softened grief; that make breaches in the cruel walls of
pride; that make the rich and poor clasp hands and feel like comrades,
warm and true.

The house in which his spirit lived was not large. It enclosed only
space enough for common needs, built near the barren land of want; but
through the open door the sunlight streamed, and from its windows all
the stars were seen, while in the garden grew the common flowers—the
flowers that all the ages through have been the messengers of honest
love; and in the fields were heard the rustling corn, and reapers songs,
telling of well-requited toil; and there were trees whose branches rose
and fell and swayed while birds filled all the air with music born of
joy. He read with tear-filled eyes the human page, and found within his
breast the history of hearts.

Tennyson's imagination lived in a palace ample, wondrous fair, with dome
and spire and galleries, where eyes of proud old pedigree grew dim with
gazing at the portraits of the worthless dead; and there were parks
and labyrinths of walks and ways and artificial lakes where sailed the
"double swans;" and there were flowers from far-off lands with strange
perfume, and men and women of the grander sort, telling of better days
and nobler deeds than men in these poor times of commerce, trade and
toil have hearts to do; and, yet, from this fair dwelling—too vast,
too finely wrought, to be a home—he uttered wondrous words, painting
pictures that will never fade, and told, with every aid of art, old
tales of love and war, sometimes beguiling men of tears, enchanting all
with melody of speech, and sometimes rousing blood and planting seeds
of high resolve and noble deeds; and sometimes thoughts were woven like
tapestries in patterns beautiful, involved and strange, where dreams and
fancies interlaced like tendrils of a vine, like harmonies that
wander and return to catch the music of the central theme, yet cold as
traceries in frost wrought on glass by winter's subtle art.

Tennyson was ingenious—Burns ingenuous. One was exclusive, and in his
exclusiveness a little disdain. The other pressed the world against his
heart.

Tennyson touched art on many sides, dealing with vast poetic themes, and
satisfied in many ways the intellectual tastes of cultured men.

Tennyson is always perfectly self-possessed. He has poetic sympathy, but
not the fire and flame. No one thinks of him as having been excited, as
being borne away by passion's storm. His pulse never rises. In artistic
calm, he turns, polishes, perfects, embroiders and beautifies. In him
there is nothing of the storm and chaos, nothing of the creative genius,
no sea wrought to fury, filling the heavens with its shattered cry.

Burns dwelt with simple things—with those that touch the heart; that
tell of joy; that spring from labor done; that lift the burdens of
despair from fainting souls; that soften hearts until the pearls of pity
fall from eyes unused to weep.

To illustrate his thought, he used the things he knew—the things
familiar to the world—not caring for the vanished things—the legends
told by artful tongues to artless ears—but clinging to the common
things of life and love and death, adorning them with countless gems;
and, over all, he placed the bow of hope.

With him the man was greater than the king, the woman than the queen.
The greatest were the noblest, and the noblest were those who loved
their fellow-men the best, the ones who filled their lives with generous
deeds. Men admire Tennyson. Men love Robert Burns.

He was a believer in God, and had confidence that this God was sitting
at the loom weaving with warp and woof of cause and effect, of fear
and fancy, pain and hope, of dream and shadows, of despair and death,
mingled with the light of love, the tapestries in which at last all
souls will see that all was perfect from the first. He believed or hoped
that the spirit of infinite goodness, soft as the autumn air, filled all
of heaven's dome with love.

Such a religion is easy to understand when it includes all races through
all times. It is consistent, if not with the highest thought, with the
deepest and the tenderest feelings of the heart.

From Cradle to Coffin

There is no time to follow the steps of Burns from old Alloway, by the
Bonnie Doon in the clay-built hut, where the January wind blew hansel
in on Robin—to Mt. Oliphant, with its cold and stingy soil, the hard
factor, whose letters made the children weep—working in the fields, or
tired with "The thresher's weary flinging tree," where he was thrilled,
for the first time with love's sweet pain that set his heart to music.

To Lochlea, still giving wings to thought—still working in the
unproductive fields, Lochlea where his father died, and reached the rest
that life denied.

To Mossgiel, where Burns reached the top and summit of his art and wrote
like one enrapt, inspired. Here he met and loved and gave to immortality
his Highland Mary.

To Edinburgh and fame, and back to Mauchline to Jean Armour and honor,
the noblest deed of all his life.

To Ellisland, by the winding Nith.

To Dumfries, a poor exciseman, wearing out his heart in the disgusting
details of degrading drudgery—suspected of treason because he
preferred Washington to Pitt—because he sympathized with the French
Revolution—because he was glad that the American colonies had become a
free nation.

At a banquet once, being asked to drink the health of Pitt, Burns said:
"I will give you a better toast—George Washington." A little while
after, when they wanted him to drink to the success of the English arms,
Burns said: "No; I will drink this: May their success equal the justice
of their cause." He sent three or four little cannon to the French
Convention, because he sympathized with the French Revolution, and
because of these little things, his love of liberty, of freedom and
justice, at Dumfries he was suspected of being a traitor, and, as a
result of these trivial things, as a result of that suspicion, Burns was
obliged to join the Dumfries volunteers.

How pitiful that the author of "Scots wha hae with Wallace bled," should
be thought an enemy of Scotland!

Poor Burns! Old and broken before his time—surrounded by the walking
lumps of Dumfries' clay!

To appease the anger of his fellow-citizens—to convince them that he
was a patriot, he actually joined the Dumfries volunteers,—bought his
uniform on credit—amount about seven pounds—was unable to pay—was
threatened with arrest and a jail by Matthew Penn.

These threats embittered his last hours.

A little while before his death, he said: "Do not let that awkward
squad—the Dumfries volunteers—fire over my grave." We have a true
insight into what his feelings were. But they fired. They were bound to
fire or die.

The last words uttered by Robert Burns were these: "That damned
scoundrel Matthew Penn."

Burns had another art, the art of ending—of stopping at the right
place. Nothing is more difficult than this. It is hard to end a play—to
get the right kind of roof on a house. Not one story-teller in a
thousand knows just the spot where the rocket should explode. They go on
talking after the stick has fallen.

Burns wrote short poems, and why? All great poems are short. There
cannot be a long poem any more than there can be a long joke. I believe
the best example of an ending perfectly accomplished you will find in
his "Vision."

There comes into his house, into that "auld clay biggin," his muse, the
spirit of a beautiful woman, and tells him what he can do, and what he
can't do, as a poet. He has a long talk with her and now the thing
is how to get her out of the house. You may think that it is an easy
thing. It is easy to get yourself into difficulty, but not to get out.

I was struck with the beautiful manner in which Burns got that angel out
of the house.

Nothing could be happier than the ending of the "Vision"—the
leave-taking of the Muse:
    "And wear thou this, she solemn said,
    And bound the holly round my head:
    The polished leaves and berries red
    Did rustling play;
    And, like a passing thought she fled.
    In light away."

How that man rose above all his fellows in death! Do you know, there is
something wonderful in death. What a repose! What a piece of sculpture!
The common man dead looks royal; a genius dead, sublime.

When a few years ago I visited all the places where Burns had been, from
the little house of clay with one room where he was born, to the little
house with one room where he now sleeps, I thought of this. Yes, I
visited them all, all the places made immortal by his genius, the field
where love first touched his heart, the field where he ploughed up the
home of the Mouse. I saw the cottage where Robert and Jean first lived
as man and wife, and walked on "the banks and braes of Bonnie Doon."
And when I stood by his grave, I said: This man was a radical, a real
genuine man. This man believed in the dignity of labor, in the nobility
of the useful. This man believed in human love, in making a heaven here,
in judging men by their deeds instead of creeds and titles. This man
believed in the liberty of the soul, of thought and speech. This man
believed in the sacred rights of the individual; he sympathized with the
suffering and oppressed. This man had the genius to change suffering and
toil into song, to enrich poverty, to make a peasant feel like a prince
of the blood, to fill the lives of the lowly with love and light. This
man had the genius to make robes of glory out of squalid rags. This man
had the genius to make Cleopatras, and Sapphos and Helens out of the
freckled girls of the villages and fields—and he had the genius to make
Auld Ayr, and Bonnie Doon, and Sweet Afton and the Winding Nith murmur
the name of Robert Burns forever.

This man left a legacy of glory to Scotland and the whole world; he
enriched our language, and with a generous hand scattered the gems of
thought. This man was the companion of poverty, and wept the tears of
grief, and yet he has caused millions to shed the happy tears of joy.

His heart blossomed in a thousand songs—songs for all times and all
seasons—suited to every experience of the heart—songs for the dawn
of love—for the glance and clasp and kiss of courtship—for "favors
secret, sweet and precious"—for the glow and flame, the ecstasy and
rapture of wedded life—songs of parting and despair—songs of hope
and simple joy—songs for the vanished days—songs for birth and
burial—songs for wild war's deadly blast, and songs for gentle
peace—songs for the dying and the dead—songs for labor and
content—songs for the spinning wheel, the sickle and the plow—songs
for sunshine and for storm, for laughter and for tears—songs that will
be sung as long as language lives and passion sways the heart of man.

And when I was at his birth-place, at that little clay house where he
was born, standing in that sacred place, I wrote these lines:
    Though Scotland boasts a thousand names,
    Of patriot, king and peer,
    The noblest, grandest of them all,
    Was loved and cradled here.
    Here lived the gentle peasant-prince,
    The loving cotter-king,
    Compared with whom the greatest lord
    Is but a titled thing.
    'Tis but a cot roofed in with straw,
    A hovel made of clay;
    One door shuts out the snow and storm,
    One window greets the day;
    And yet I stand within this room,
    And hold all thrones in scorn;
    For here beneath this lowly thatch,
    Love's sweetest bard was born.
    Within this hallowed hut I feel
    Like one who clasps a shrine,
    When the glad lips at last have touched
    The something deemed divine.
    And here the world through all the years,
    As long as day returns,
    The tribute of its love and tears,
    Will pay to Robert Burns.
