Delphi Complete Works of Robert Burns (Illustrated) (Delphi Poets Series) (176 page)

In ‘Phillis, the Queen o’ the Fair’ he uses many beautiful things to illustrate her charms:

The daisy amused my fond fancy,
So artless, so simple, so wild:
Thou emblem, said I, o’ my Phillis —
For she is Simplicity’s child.

The rosebud’s the blush o’ my charmer,
Her sweet, balmy lip when ‘tis prest:
How fair and how pure is the lily!
But fairer and purer her breast.

Yon knot of gay flowers in the arbour,
They ne’er wi’ my Phillis can vie:
Her breath is the breath of the woodbine,
Its dew-drop o’ diamond her eye.

Her voice is the song o’ the morning,
That wakes thro’ the green-spreading grove,
When Phœbus peeps over the mountains
On music, and pleasure, and love.

But beauty, how frail and how fleeting!
The bloom of a fine summer’s day;
While worth, in the mind o’ my Phillis,
Will flourish without a decay.

In ‘My Love is like a Red, Red Rose’ he uses exquisite symbolism:

My luve is like a red, red rose
That’s newly sprung in June;
My luve is like a melodie
That’s sweetly play’d in tune.

As fair art thou, my bonie lass,
So deep in luve am I;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a’ the seas gang dry.

In the pastoral song, ‘Behold, my Love, how Green the Groves,’ he says in the last verse:

These wild-wood flowers I’ve pu’d to deck
That spotless breast o’ thine;
The courtier’s gems may witness love,
But never love like mine.

In the dialogue song ‘Philly and Willy,’

He says
,
As songsters of the early spring
Are ilka day more sweet to hear, each
So ilka day to me mair dear
And charming is my Philly.

She replies
,
As on the brier the budding rose
Still richer breathes and fairer blows,
So in my tender bosom grows
The love I bear my Willy.

In ‘O Bonnie was yon Rosy Brier’ he says:

O bonnie was yon rosy brier
That blooms so far frae haunt o’ man;
And bonnie she, and ah, how dear!
It shaded frae the e’ening sun.

Yon rosebuds in the morning dew,
How pure amang the leaves sae green;
But purer was the lover’s vow
They witnessed in their shade yestreen.

All in its rude and prickly bower,
That crimson rose, how sweet and fair.
But love is far a sweeter flower,
Amid life’s thorny path o’ care.

In ‘A Health to Ane I Loe Dear’ — one of his most perfect love-songs — he says:

Thou art sweet as the smile when fond lovers meet,
And soft as their parting tear.
······
‘Tis sweeter for thee despairing
Than aught in the world beside.

In ‘My Peggy’s Charms,’ describing Miss Margaret Chalmers, Burns confines himself mainly to her mental and spiritual charms. This was clearly a distinctive characteristic of nearly the whole of his love-songs. No other man ever wrote so many pure songs without suggestion of the flesh as did Robert Burns.

My Peggy’s face, my Peggy’s form,
The frost of hermit age might warm;
My Peggy’s worth, my Peggy’s mind,
Might charm the first of human kind.

I love my Peggy’s angel air,
Her face so truly, heavenly fair.
Her native grace, so void of art;
But I adore my Peggy’s heart.

The tender thrill, the pitying tear,
The generous purpose, nobly dear;
The gentle look that rage disarms —
These are all immortal charms.

In his ‘Epistle to Davie — A Brother Poet’ Burns, after detailing the many hardships and sorrows of the poor, forgets the hardships, and recalls his blessings:

There’s a’ the pleasures o’ the heart,
The lover and the frien’;
Ye hae your Meg, your dearest part,
And I my darling Jean.

It warms me, it charms me,
To mention but her name;
It heats me, it beets me,  kindles
And sets me a’ on flame.

O all ye powers who rule above!
O Thou whose very self art love!
Thou know’st my words sincere!
The life-blood streaming through my heart,
Or my more dear immortal part
Is not more fondly dear!
When heart-corroding care and grief
Deprive my soul of rest,
Her dear idea brings relief
And solace to my breast.
Thou Being, All-Seeing,
O hear my fervent prayer;
Still take her, and make her
Thy most peculiar care.

Three years after the death of Highland Mary, Burns remained out in the stackyard on Ellisland farm and composed ‘To Mary in Heaven.’ Nothing could more strikingly prove the sincerity, the permanence, the purity, and the sacredness of the white-souled love of Burns than this poem:

Thou ling’ring 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?
See’st thou thy lover lowly laid?
Hear’st thou the groans that rend his breast?

That sacred hour can I forget?
Can I forget that hallow’d grove
Where, by the winding Ayr, we met
To live one day of parting love?
Eternity can 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, thickening green;
The fragrant birch and hawthorn hoar
Twined amorous round the raptured scene:
The flowers sprang wanton to be prest,
The birds sang love on every spray;
Till too, too soon, the glowing west,
Proclaimed the speed of wingèd day.

Still o’er these scenes my mem’ry wakes,
And fondly broods with miser-care;
Time but th’ impression stronger makes,
As streams their channels deeper wear.
My Mary, dear departed shade!
Where is thy place of blissful rest?
See’st thou thy lover lowly laid?
Hear’st thou the groans that rend his breast?

The general themes of this sacred poem, written three years after Mary Campbell’s death, are the preponderating themes of his love-songs. No love-songs ever written have so little of even embracing and kissing as the love-songs of Burns, except the sonnets of Mrs Browning.

It is worthy of note that Mary Campbell was not a beauty — her attractions were kindness, honesty, and unselfishness; yet, though happily married himself, he loved her, three years after her death, as profoundly as when they parted on the Fail, more than three years before he wrote the poem.

CHAPTER VIII. Burns a Philosopher
.

The fine training by their father developed the minds of both Robert and Gilbert Burns as original, independent thinkers, chiefly in regard to religious, ethical, and social problems. Professor Dugald Stewart, of Edinburgh University, expressed the opinion that ‘the mind of Burns was so strong and clear that he might have taken high rank as a thinker in any department of human thought; probably attaining as high rank in any other department as he achieved as a poet.’ The quotations given from his writings in the preceding pages prove that he was a philosopher of unusual power in regard to Religion, Democracy, and Brotherhood.

Lockhart said, speaking of the ranking of Burns as a thinker, compared with the best trained minds in Edinburgh: ‘Even the stateliest of these philosophers had enough to do to maintain the attitude of equality when brought into contact with Burns’s gigantic understanding.’

Many of his poems are ornamented and increased in value by flashes of philosophic thought. His ‘Epistle to a Young Friend’ is a series of philosophical statements for human guidance.

Ye’ll find mankind an unco squad, strange
And muckle they may grieve ye, much

I’ll no say men are villains a’;
The real hardened wicked,
Wha hae nae check but human law,
Are to a few restricket;  restricted

But, och! mankind are unco weak, very
An’ little to be trusted;
If self the wavering balance shake
It’s rarely right adjusted.

He takes a kindly view, that men as a whole are not so bad as pessimists would have us believe; that there are comparatively few that have no respect for the Divine Law, and are kept in check only by the fear of human law; but mourns because most men yet think more of self than of their neighbours, to whom they may be of service, and sees that, where our relations with our fellow-men are not satisfactorily balanced, the destroyer of harmony is universally selfishness in one form or another.

The fear o’ Hell’s a hangman’s whip
To haud the wretch in order.

Even yet this is advanced philosophy, that fear, being a negative motive, cannot kindle human power or lead men to higher growth. So far as it can influence the human soul, its effect must be to depress it. Not only the fear of hell, but fear of anything, is an agency of evil. Some day a better word than fear will be used to express the proper attitude of human souls towards God.

But where you feel your honour grip
Let that aye be your border.

What you think of yourself matters more to you than what others think of you. Let honour and conscience be your guide, and go not beyond the limits they prescribe. Stop at the slightest warning honour gives,

And resolutely keep its laws,
Uncaring consequences.

In regard to religious matters, he gave his young friend sage advice:

The great Creator to revere
Must sure become the creature;
But still the preaching cant forbear,
And ev’n the rigid feature.

The soul’s attitude to the Creator is a determining factor in deciding its happiness and growth. Reverence should not mean solemnity and awe. Reverence based on dread blights the soul and dwarfs it. True reverence reaches its highest when its source is joy; then it becomes productive of character — constructively transforming character. The formalism of ‘preaching cant’ robs religion of its natural attractiveness, especially to younger people; the ‘rigid feature’ turns those who would enjoy religion from association with those who claim to be Christians, and yet, especially when they speak about religion, look like melancholy and miserable criminals whose final appeal for pardon has been refused. Burns’s philosophy would lift the shadows of frightfulness from religion and let its joyousness be revealed.

An Atheist’s laugh’s a poor exchange
For Deity offended.

A correspondence fixed wi’ heaven
Is sure a noble anchor.

To Burns, the relationship of the soul to God was of first importance. He cared little for man’s formalisms, but personal connection with a loving Father he regarded as the supreme source of happiness. Only a reverent and philosophic mind would think of prayer as ‘a correspondence with heaven.’

Burns holds a high rank as a profound philosopher of human life, of human growth, and of human consciousness of the Divine, as the vital centre of human power.

Burns was a philosopher in his recognition that productive work is essential to human happiness and progress.

In ‘The Twa Dogs’ he makes Cæsar say:

But human bodies are sic fools,
For a’ their colleges and schools,
That when nae real ills perplex them,
They mak enow themselves to vex them;
An’ ay the less they hae to sturt them, trouble
In like proportion less will hurt them.
······
But gentleman, and ladies warst,
Wi’ ev’n-down want o’ wark are curst.

Burns had real sympathy for the idle rich. He saw that idleness leads to many evils, and that probably the worst evils, those that produce most unhappiness, are those that result from neglecting to use, or misusing, powers that, if wisely used, would produce comfort and happiness for ourselves as well as for others. He believed that every man and woman would be happier if engaged in some productive occupation, and that those who do not use their hands to produce for themselves and their fellows are ‘curst wi’ want o’ wark.’

This belief is based on an old and very profound philosophy, that is not even yet understood as widely and as fully as it should be: the philosophy first expounded by Plato, and afterwards by Goethe and Ruskin, that ‘all evil springs from unused, or misused, good.’ Whatever element is highest in our lives will degrade us most if misused. The best in the lives of the idle sours and causes deterioration instead of development of character, and breeds discontent and unhappiness, so that days are ‘insipid, dull and tasteless,’ and nights are ‘unquiet, lang and restless.’

Burns showed that he understood this revealing philosophy in ‘The Vision.’ In this great poem he assumes that Coila, the genius of Kyle, his native district in Ayrshire, appeared to him in a vision, and revealed a clear understanding of the epoch events of his past life and their influence on his development, and gave him advice to guide him for the future. In one verse he says:

I saw thy pulse’s maddening play
Wild send thee pleasure’s devious way,
Misled by fancy’s meteor-ray,
By passion driven;
But yet the light that led astray
Was light from heaven.

He was attacked and criticised severely for the statement contained in the last two lines. The statement is but philosophic truth that his critics did not understand. Fancy and passion are elements of power given from heaven. Properly used they become important elements in human happiness and development. Improperly used they produce unhappiness and degradation.

Burns understood clearly the philosophic basis of modern education, the importance of developing the individuality, or selfhood, or special power of each child. The poem he wrote to his friend Robert Graham of Fintry, beginning:

When Nature her great masterpiece designed
And framed her last, best work, the human mind,
Her eye intent on all the mazy plan,
She formed of various parts the various man,

is a philosophical description of how Nature produced various types of men, giving to each mind special powers and aptitudes. The thought of the poem is the basis of all modern educational thought: the value of the individuality of each child, and the importance of developing it.

He expresses very beautifully the philosophy of the ephemeral nature of certain forms of pleasure in eight lines of ‘Tam o’ Shanter’:

But pleasures are like poppies spread,
You seize the flower, its bloom is shed;
Or as the snowfall in the river,
A moment white, then melts forever;
Or like the borealis race,
That flit e’er you can point their place;
Or like the rainbow’s lovely form,
Evanishing amid the storm.

Burns understood the philosophy of the simple life in the development of character and happiness.

In ‘The Cotter’s Saturday Night,’ after dilating on the glories of simple, reverent religion, as compared with ‘Religion’s Pride,’

In all the pomp of method and of art,
When men display to congregations wide
Devotion’s every grace except the heart,

he prays for the young people of Scotland —

Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil
Be blest with health, and peace, and sweet content;
And O! may Heaven their simple lives prevent
From luxury’s contagion, weak and vile!
Then, howe’er crowns and coronets be rent,
A virtuous populace may rise the while,
And stand a wall of fire around their much-loved isle.

He understood the value of simplicity in life as well as in religion, and expressed it in admirable form.

‘The Address to the Unco Guid’ has a kindly philosophic sympathy running like a stream of light through it; the profound sympathy of the Master who searched for the one stray lamb, and who suggested that he who was without sin should cast the first stone. The last verse especially contains a sublime human philosophy, that if studied till understood, and then practised, would work a greatly needed change in the attitude of the rest of humanity towards the so-called wayward. It is one of the strange anomalies of life that, generally, professing Christian women have in the past been the last to come with Christian sympathy of an affectionate, and sisterly, and respectful quality to take an erring sister in their arms to try to prove that she still possessed their esteem, and to rekindle faith in her heart.

His poem to Mrs Dunlop on ‘New Year’s Day, 1790;’ ‘A Man’s a Man for a’ That;’ ‘A Winter Night;’ ‘Sketch in Verse;’ and ‘Verses written in Friar’s Carse Hermitage,’ all show him to have been a philosophic student of human nature.

A few quotations from letters to his friends will show his philosophical attitude to general matters, as the quotations from his letters showed the clearness and trueness of his philosophy regarding religion, democracy, and brotherhood.

Burns saw man’s duty to his fellows and to himself in this life.

In a letter to Robert Ainslie, Edinburgh, 1788, he wrote: ‘I have no objection to prefer prodigality to avarice, in some few instances; but I appeal to your observation, if you have not met, and often met, with the same disingenuousness, the same hollow-hearted insincerity, and disintegrative depravity of principle, in the hackneyed victims of profusion, as in the unfeeling children of parsimony. I have every possible reverence for the much-talked-of world beyond the grave, and I wish that which piety believes, and virtue deserves, may be all matter of fact. But in all things belonging to, and terminating in, the present scene of existence, man has serious business on hand. Whether a man shall shake hands with welcome in the distinguished elevation of respect, or shrink from contempt in the abject corner of insignificance; whether he shall wanton under the tropic of plenty, or at least enjoy himself in the comfortable latitudes of easy convenience, or starve in the arctic circle of poverty; whether he shall rise in the manly consciousness of a self-approving mind, or sink beneath a galling load of regret and remorse — these are alternatives of the last moment.’

Since the time of Burns men and women, both in the churches and out of them, have learned to set more store on the importance of living truly on the earth, and have ceased to a large extent to think only of a life to come after death. Men and women are now trying in increasing numbers to make it more heavenly here.

Burns taught a sound philosophy of contentment as a basis for happiness.

He wrote to Mr Ainslie in 1789: ‘You need not doubt that I find several very unpleasant and disagreeable circumstances in my business [that of a gauger], but I am tired with and disgusted at the language of complaint at the evils of life. Human existence in the most favourable situations does not abound with pleasures, and has its inconveniences and ills; capricious, foolish man mistakes these inconveniences and ills, as if they were the peculiar property of his own particular situation; and hence that eternal fickleness, that love of change, which has ruined, and daily does ruin, many a fine fellow, as well as many a blockhead; and is almost without exception a constant source of disappointment and misery. So far from being dissatisfied with my present lot, I earnestly pray the Great Disposer of events that it may never be worse, and I think I can lay my hand on my heart and say “I shall be content.”’

Good, sound philosophy of contentment! Not the contentment that does not try to improve life’s conditions, but the wise contentment that recognises the best in present conditions, instead of foolishly resenting what it cannot change.

Burns taught the philosophy of good citizenship.

In 1789 he wrote to Mr Ainslie: ‘If the relations we stand in to King, country, kindred, and friends be anything but the visionary fancies of dreaming metaphysicians; if religion, virtue, magnanimity, generosity, humanity, and justice be aught but empty sounds; then the man who may be said to live only for others, for the beloved, honourable female whose tender, faithful embrace endears life, and for the helpless little innocents who are to be the men and women, the worshippers of his God, the subjects of his King, and the support, nay the very vital existence, of his country in the ensuing age, is the type of truest manhood.’