The Canongate Burns (89 page)
Read The Canongate Burns Online
Authors: Robert Burns
First printed by Stewart and Meikle, in pamphlet form, 1799.
And send the Godly in a pet to pray.
                                             Alexander Pope.
O Thou that in the Heavens does dwell!
Wha, as it pleases best Thysel,
who, thyself
Sends ane to Heaven an' ten to Hell,
one
            A' for Thy glory!
all
5
And no for ony guid or ill
any good
            They've done before Thee. âÂ
I bless and praise Thy matchless might,
When thousands Thou hast left in night,
That I am here before Thy sight,
10
            For gifts an' grace,
A burning and a shining light
            To a' this place. â
What was I, or my generation,
That I should get sic exaltation?
such
15
I, wha deserv'd most just damnation,
who
            For broken laws
Sax thousand years ere my creation,
six
            Thro' Adam's cause!
When from my mither's womb I fell,
mother's
20
Thou might hae plung'd me deep in hell,
have
To gnash my gooms, and weep, and wail,
gums
            In burning lakes,
Whare damned devils roar and yell
where
            Chain'd to their stakes. â
25
Yet I am here, a chosen sample,
To show Thy grace is great and ample:
I'm here a pillar o' Thy temple
            Strong as a rock,
A guide, a ruler and example
30
            To a' Thy flock. â
O Lord thou kens what zeal I bear,
knows
When drinkers drink, and swearers swear,
And singin' there, and dancin' here,
            Wi' great an' sma';
small
35
For I am keepet by Thy fear,
kept
            Free frae them a'. â
from, all
But yet â O Lord â confess I must â
At times I'm fash'd wi' fleshly lust;
troubled
And sometimes too, in warldly trust
worldly
40
            Vile Self gets in;
But Thou remembers we are dust,
            Defiled wi' sin. â
O Lord â yestreen â Thou kens â wi' Meg â
last night, knows
Thy pardon I sincerely beg!
45
O may't ne'er be a living plague,
            To my dishonour!
An' I'll ne'er lift a lawless leg
            Again upon her. â
Besides, I farther maun avow,
must
50
Wi' Leezie's lass, three times â I trow â
But, Lord, that Friday I was fou
drunk
            When I cam near her;
came
Or else, Thou kens, Thy servant true
knows
            Wad never steer her. â
would, meddle with
55
Maybe Thou lets this fleshly thorn
Buffet Thy servant e'en and morn,
evening
Lest he owre proud and high should turn,
over
            That he's sae gifted;
so
If sae, Thy han' maun e'en be borne
so, hand must
60
            Untill Thou lift it. â
Lord, bless Thy chosen in this place,
For here Thou has a chosen race:
But God, confound their stubborn face,
            An' blast their name,
65
Wha bring Thy elders to disgrace
who
            An' open shame. â
Lord mind Gaun Hamilton's deserts!
Gavin
He drinks, and swears, an' plays at cartes,
cards
Yet has sae monie takin arts
so many, popular
70
            Wi' Great and Sma',
small
Frae God's ain priest the people's hearts
from, own
            He steals awa. â
away
And when we chasten'd him therefore,
Thou kens how he bred sic a splore,
knows, such, row
75
And set the warld in a roar
world
            O' laughin at us:
Curse Thou his basket and his store,
            Kail an' potatoes. â
cabbage/greens
Lord, hear my earnest cry and prayer
80
Against that Presbytry of Ayr!
Thy strong right hand, Lord, mak it bare
            Upon their heads!
Lord visit them, and dinna spare,
do not
            For their misdeeds!
85
O Lord my God, that glib-tongu'd Aiken!
smooth-
My very heart and flesh are quaking
To think how I sat, sweating, shaking,
            An' pish'd wi' dread,
wet myself
While Auld wi' hingin lip gaed sneaking
hanging, went sneering
90
            And hid his head!
Lord, in Thy day o' vengeance try him!
Lord visit him wha did employ him!
who
And pass not in Thy mercy by them,
            Nor hear their prayer;
95
But for Thy people's sake destroy them,
            An' dinna spare!
do not
But Lord, remember me and mine
Wi' mercies temporal and divine!
That I for grace an' gear may shine,
100
            Excell'd by nane!
none
And a' the glory shall be Thine!
            AMEN! AMEN!Â
Manuscript copies of this brilliant satire, probably a broadside printing, were circulated among friends of the poet during his lifetime. It first appeared in pamphlet form in 1799 from Stewart and Meikle, Glasgow, who then included it in their 1801 volume. Holy Willie, or Willie Fisher (1737â1809), is described by Burns in the Glenriddell manuscript as an âElder in the parish of Mauchline, and much and justly famed for that polemical chattering which ends in tippling Orthodoxy, and for that Spiritualised Bawdry which refines to Liquorish Devotion'. He further explains, âIn a Sessional process with a gentleman in Mauchline, aMr Gavin Hamilton, Holy Willie, and his priest, father Auld, after full hearing in the Presbytery of Ayr, came off but second best; owing partly to the oratorical powers of Mr Robt Aitken, Mr Hamilton's Counsel; but chiefly to Mr Hamilton's being one of the most irreproachable and truly respectable characters in the country'. Gavin Hamilton
(1751â1805) and Robert Aitken (1739â1807) were intimate friends of Burns.
Again, like
To A Haggis,
this poem is over-used but it is, even by Burns's standards, a quite astonishing dramatic monologue as he gets under the alien skin of his subject. The idea of self-destructive monologue has medieval roots and the poem may have a specific origin in Ramsay's
Last Speech of a Wretched Miser
but Burns has a talent for the genre only equalled by Swift and Browning. Formally, as Kinsley notes, the poem is precisely a prayer which âfollows the traditional scheme of invocation (ll. 1â 6) and praise (ll. 7â30); confession and penitence (ll. 37â60); intercession (ll. 61â2) and petition (ll. 63â102). As well as parodying form, Burns parodies language. Kinsley notes that: âThe poem is written in the “language of the saints” â that improbable amalgam of Biblical English and colloquial Scots which was characteristic of the Covenanter and the Presbyterian evangelical ⦠and which, in Burns as in Galt, has an almost miraculous unction' (Vol. 3, p. 1048). The poem is saturated by the crazily inverted use of specific Biblical texts. Kinsley mentions one marvellous example from Deuteronomy, xxviii, 15â19: âLl. 77â8: “Curse Thou his basket and his store, /Kail an' potatoes”.' A mean version of the magnificently comprehensive curse laid by Jehovah on the ungodly: âCursed shalt thou be in the city ⦠Cursed be thy basket and thy store ⦠and the flocks of thy sheep' (Vol. III, p. 1052).
In her detailed, perceptive treatment of the poem, McGuirk remarks:
Willie sees himself as marked by God for âgifts an' grace'; readers experience him differently, however â as marked by Burns for ridicule. Yet this is not one of Burns's bitter or angry satires. Willie's spite comes to so little, after all. And he is so fluent in his self-love ⦠Willie's prayer, for all its scriptural allusion, is notable mainly for its perverse projection of Willie's own spitefulness onto the deity ⦠Burns was reared to scepticism about the Auld Licht â¦: William Burns taught all his children to reject the exclusive focus on divine election â salvation through grace alone â that has corrupted Willie. So Burns mocks Willie as any son of his father would. He also wrote as a grateful friend of Hamilton, who had generously provided shelter for the Burns family in its worst crisis â a kindness fresh in the poet's mind, as the bankruptcy trial and subsequent death of Burns's father had
occurred only a year before âHoly Willie's Prayer' was written (p. 202).
We are not so certain of how we laugh at Willie Fisher who died, probably due to drink, frozen in a ditch in February 1809 and was buried in Mauchline cemetery near Mary Morison.
First published by Stewart, 1801.
Here Holy Willie's sair worn clay
sore
       Taks up its last abode;
takes
His saul has taen some other way,
soul, taken
       I fear, the left-hand road.
towards hell
Â
5
Stop! there he is as sure's a gun,
       Poor, silly body, see him;
Nae wonder he's as black's the grun,
no, ground
       Observe wha's standing wi' him!
who is
Your brunstane devilship I see
10
       Has got him there before ye:
But haud your nine-tail cat a wee,
hold, a while
       Till ance you've heard my story.
once
Your pity I will not implore,
       For pity ye have nane;
none
15
Justice, alas! has gi'en him o'er,
given
       And mercy's day is gaen.
gone
But hear me, Sir, deil as ye are,
devil
       Look something to your credit;
A coof like him wad stain your name,
blockhead, would
20
       If it were kent ye did it. â
known
This was probably composed in 1785 after feedback from the private circulation of
Holy Willie's Prayer.
First printed by Willam Cobbett, circa 1820s.
As Tam the chapman on a day
pedlar
Wi' Death forgather'd by the way,
Weel pleas'd, he greets a wight sae famous,
well, sturdy person
And Death was nae less pleas'd wi' Thomas,
no
Wha cheerfully lays down his pack,
who
And there blaws up a hearty crack:
starts up, conversation
His social, friendly, honest heart
Sae tickled Death, they could na part;
so, not
Sae after viewing knives and garters,
so
Death taks him hame to gie him quarters.
home, give
In the Aldine edition (1839), noted for its retrieval of radical and bawdy works, this poem was allegedly printed by William Cobbett. Kinsley accepts this, though he could not locate it in
The Political
Register
which, however, was not Cobbett's sole publication. Cobbett, like all English radicals, was certainly sympathetic to Burns. Thus in his 1832
Tour in Scotland,
a travel journal which Burns would have appreciated, given its preoccupation with the degree to which he found both Highland and Lowland Scotland ravaged by agrarian capitalism, Cobbett reports his Dumfries visit thus:
We reached DUMFRIES about five o'clock in the evening of Tuesday, the 6. And I lectured at the Theatre at half-after seven; and, considering, that the people have been frightened half to death about the cholera morbus (of which disease great numbers have actually died here), the attendance was wonderfully good. Poor BURNS, the poet, died in this town, an
exciseman,
after having written so well against that species of taxation, and that particular sort of office. Oh!
Sobriety!
How manifold are thy blessings! How great thy enjoyments! How complete the protection which thou givest to talent; and how feeble is talent unless it has that protection! I was very happy to hear that his widow, who still lives in this town, is amply provided for; and my intention was to go to her, to tell her my name, and to say, that I came to offer my respects as a mark of my admiration of the talents of her late husband, one single page of whose writings is worth more than a cart load that has been written by WALTER SCOTT (p. 235).
Loving Burns, he loathed Scott as much as Coleridge did, seeing in his endless best-selling pages a sordid inflation of literature, analogous to the replacement of gold by paper currency.