A Night Out with Burns

by Robert Burns

  All around the room, faces were rocking to the songs of Robert Burns. This was the 200th anniversary. There was clapping and a clattering of dishes, a clinking of glasses and raising of toasts; a haggis was addressed and split and served; whisky was drunk; and the strip-lights burned like beacons. There are many Robert Burnses, many of them, and none of them the same. There are as many Robert Burnses as there are people to care for him, and things to care for. As his funeral cortège made its slow way down the main street in Dumfries, a little boy was heard to say to his mother, ‘But who will be our poet now?’ The answer, after all this time, is: ‘He will.’ The glass in front of me was full again, and the lights had settled down. It was time for me to speak. Time to toast this town of mine, and the complicated memory of Robert Burns.

  This volume grew out of a spirit of sociability: we wanted to fashion a book of Burns’s best poems that would also include a story of how he might be read today. I thought it likely that Burns would object to the idea that the fun should be taken out of literature, and I wanted to restore it, at least in this edition, by sorting the work so as to greet that argument. Canonical writers are not always best served by their canonisers: the threat of the ‘set text’ is very great, and we must allow ourselves to light on ways to ensure that a solemn presentation of greatness in a writer does not, for all its scholarly virtues, result in the writer remaining unread.

  The poems I’ve chosen have found their way into four overarching categories: the lasses, the drinks, the immortals and the politics. Of course, the categories bleed into one another, but if you allow that this arrangement causes the poems to suggest one another in new ways, then you might forgive the insult my arrangement offers to chronology. There are great poems left out and, some would say, dubious ones left in, but I wanted to bring readers with me on a personal journey and a confrontation with the glory of the poet’s work. It is for me the summation of many journeys, and this night out with Robert Burns confirms my feeling that he is the prince of poetry, not only for me or for Scotland, but for the world. It might have pleased the long-dead boy beside the funeral cortège to know that Burns is indeed our poet – now, and for as long as the world has a care and a feeling for the dance of reality and imagination.

  The Lasses

  In the best work of the world’s most representative poet, every word can sound like an effusion of pure spirit. And who could mistake Burns’s genius when they encounter his beautiful lyric ‘Green Grow the Rashes’? He once introduced it by saying the song was written in ‘the genuine language of my heart’. A hymn to spontaneous affection over worldly desires, there is nothing else like it. I once knew a retired Ayrshire sailor, Mr Savage. I remember him singing this song one morning as he made his way along the seafront in the town of Saltcoats. The Firth of Clyde appeared to calm itself at the sound of the old man’s voice, as he sang this lilting memorial to a great and simple sentiment.

  Green Grow the Rashes

  CHORUS

  Green grow the rashes, O;

  Green grow the rashes, O;

  The sweetest hours that e’er I spend,

  Are spent amang the lasses, O.

  There’s nought but care on ev’ry han’,

  In ev’ry hour that passes, O:

  What signifies the life o’ man,

  An’ ’twere na for the lasses, O.

  Green grow, &c.

  The warly race may riches chase,

  An’ riches still may fly them, O;

  An’ tho’ at last they catch them fast,

  Their hearts can ne’er enjoy them, O.

  Green grow, &c.

  But gie me a canny hour at e’en,

  My arms about my Dearie, O;

  An’ warly cares, an’ warly men,

  May a’ gae tapsalteerie, O!

  Green grow, &c.

  For you sae douse, ye sneer at this,

  Ye’re nought but senseless asses, O:

  The wisest Man the warl’ saw,

  He dearly lov’d the lasses, O.

  Green grow, &c.

  Auld Nature swears, the lovely Dears

  Her noblest work she classes, O:

  Her prentice han’ she try’d on man,

  An’ then she made the lasses, O.

  Green grow, &c.

  One can practically see the yellow light at the window of the dance-hall and feel the pulse of romantic hope, a new and lively element in the blood. And here she is, Mary Morison – as ‘the dance gaed through the lighted ha” – and we are caught immediately in the drama of her specialness. There is a grave in Mauchline churchyard to ‘the poet’s bonnie Mary Morison, who died on 29 June 1791, aged 20’. Mary is a ghost among the drinking glasses, yet forever alive in the flow of these images.

  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 through the lighted ha’,

  To thee my fancy took its wing,

  I sat, but neither heard, nor saw:

  Though 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 faute 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.

  I wrote part of my first novel, Our Fathers, in the west of Ireland, alone in a house by the sea in County Cork. After dark, a regular beam of light from the Fastnet lighthouse would fall over the bed and I woke there one night with a weathered thought. It was to do with the Irish who had left for Scotland years before. I went back to my desk and wrote some lines about the main character’s father, Tam. He ‘once wrote a letter to a cousin in Ireland, saying that he only stuck to the farm because of Robert Burns. “My habits are bad in the field,” he wrote, “but never mind, there’s something to see in the battle for stuff over here, with the thought of the poet’s hand there beside you.”’ Tam then goes to the Ayrshire madhouse at Glengall and sings ‘The Belles of Mauchline’ to his sick wife, and he kisses her.

  The Belles of Mauchline

  In Mauchline there dwells six proper young Belles,

  The pride of the place and its neighbourhood a’,

  Their carriage and dress a stranger would guess,

  In Lon’on or Paris they’d gotten it a’:

  Miss Miller is fine, Miss Murkland’s divine,

  Miss Smith she has wit and Miss Betty is braw;

  There’s beauty and fortune to get wi’ Miss Morton,

  But ARMOUR’S the jewel for me o’ them a’.—

  Burns had intended to emigrate with Mary Campbell to Jamaica, but she died in Greenock before they could leave. Each of Burns’s lasses has a skirl of the country dance-hall about her and a scent of the Ayrshire fields, but not Mary. We imagine her spirit mingled with high foreign hopes and sea salt, caught up in the Atlantic roar.

  Will Ye Go to the Indies, My Mary?

  Will ye go to the Indies, my Mary,

  And leave auld Scotia’s shore;

  Will ye go to the Indies, my Mary,

  Across th’ Atlantic roar.

  O sweet grows the lime and the orange

  And the apple on the pine;

  But a’ the charms o’ the Indies

  Can never equal thine.

  I hae sworn by the Heavens to my Mary,

  I hae
sworn by the Heavens to be true;

  And sae may the Heavens forget me,

  When I forget my vow!

  O plight me your faith, my Mary,

  And plight me your lily-white hand;

  O plight me your faith, my Mary,

  Before I leave Scotia’s strand.

  We hae plighted our truth, my Mary,

  In mutual affection to join:

  And curst be the cause that shall part us,

  The hour, and the moment o’ time!!!

  A love poem is a sudden encounter with one’s own capacity for wonder; it is a settlement of joy amid the complications of affection. ‘A lyric poem,’ writes James Fenton, ‘expresses an intense feeling of the moment. It is all about the subjective, all about the here and now. It is not – alas, for the loved one – a contract, or a prenuptial agreement.’

  Of A’ the Airts

  Of a’ the airts the wind can blaw,

  I dearly like the West;

  For there the bony Lassie lives,

  The Lassie I lo’e best:

  There’s wild-woods grow, and rivers row,

  And mony a hill between;

  But day and night my fancy’s flight

  Is ever wi’ my Jean.—

  I see her in the dewy flowers,

  I see her sweet and fair;

  I hear her in the tunefu’ birds,

  I hear her charm the air:

  There’s not a bony flower, that springs

  By fountain, shaw, or green;

  There’s not a bony bird that sings

  But minds me o’ my Jean.—

  I once sang this song in a gymnasium filled to the summit of the wall bars with tittering Ayrshire schoolchildren. It was St Luke’s Primary School in the spring of 1978, and Mrs Ferguson, the headmistress, had decided there was only one boy for the job. I can still see my blushing face beside the old piano, and Fergie’s vaguely nationalistic smile as she thumped the keys and nodded me in with a skoosh of pride. It wasn’t entirely easy – aged ten – to conjure up my troubles with the saucy lasses, but from the corner of my eye I saw the girls coming into the gym ready for Jacqueline Thompson’s ballet class, due to begin as soon as the Burns was over. The lasses were all hair-buns and slipperettes, and I know my voice lifted and reached out to meet the loveliness of their wicked faces.

  My Love She’s but a Lassie Yet

  My love she’s but a lassie yet,

  My love she’s but a lassie yet;

  We’ll let her stand a year or twa,

  She’ll no be half sae saucy yet.—

  I rue the day I sought her O,

  I rue the day I sought her O,

  Wha gets her needs na say he’s woo’d,

  But he may say he’s bought her O.—

  Come draw a drap o’ the best o’t yet,

  Come draw a drap o’ the best o’t yet:

  Gae seek for Pleasure whare ye will,

  But here I never misst it yet.—

  We’re a’ dry wi’ drinkin o’t,

  We’re a’ dry wi’ drinkin o’t:

  The minister kisst the fidler’s wife,

  He could na preach for thinkin o’t.—

  Robert Burns saw love as an expression of natural freedom, but he understood well enough that it might also be experienced as a mode of performance. In Edinburgh, he fell for a married lady, Agnes McLehose, or Nancy, who lived alone in Potter Row, and he turned their brief affair into a sometimes rapturous drama of drawing-room manners. They took arcadian names, Clarinda and Sylvander, and played their respective parts in a way that offered no great insult to sincerity. ‘Ae Fond Kiss’ is proof of that: the final stanza, said Walter Scott, ‘contains the essence of a thousand love tales’.

  Ae Fond Kiss

  Ae fond kiss, and then we sever;

  Ae fareweel, and then for ever!

  Deep in heart-wrung tears I’ll pledge thee,

  Warring sighs and groans I’ll wage thee.—

  Who shall say that Fortune grieves him,

  While the star of hope she leaves him:

  Me, nae chearful twinkle lights me;

  Dark despair around benights me.—

  I’ll ne’er blame my partial fancy,

  Naething could resist my Nancy:

  But to see her, was to love her;

  Love but her, and love for ever.—

  Had we never lov’d sae kindly,

  Had we never lov’d sae blindly!

  Never met—or never parted,

  We had ne’er been broken-hearted.—

  Fare-thee-weel, thou first and fairest!

  Fare-thee-weel, thou best and dearest!

  Thine be ilka joy and treasure,

  Peace, Enjoyment, Love and Pleasure!—

  Ae fond kiss, and then we sever!

  Ae fareweel, Alas, for ever!

  Deep in heart-wrung tears I’ll pledge thee,

  Warring sighs and groans I’ll wage thee.—

  Abirk is a silver birch tree. It has a talent for growing in poor soil and a lifespan between sixty and ninety years. The bark is usually white and smooth, the twigs are waxy, and fresh green foliage appears to dress the trees in spring. The unobtrusive flowers appear in April and the small fruits in June.

  Afton Water

  Flow gently, sweet Afton, among thy green braes,

  Flow gently, I’ll sing thee a song in thy praise;

  My Mary’s asleep by thy murmuring stream,

  Flow gently, sweet Afton, disturb not her dream.

  Thou stock dove whose echo resounds thro’ the glen,

  Ye wild whistling blackbirds in yon thorny den,

  Thou green crested lapwing thy screaming forbear,

  I charge you disturb not my slumbering Fair.

  How lofty, sweet Afton, thy neighbouring hills,

  Far mark’d with the courses of clear, winding rills;

  There daily I wander as noon rises high,

  My flocks and my Mary’s sweet Cot in my eye.

  How pleasant thy banks and green vallies below,

  Where wild in the woodlands the primroses blow;

  There oft as mild ev’ning weeps over the lea,

  The sweet scented birk shades my Mary and me.

  Thy chrystal stream, Afton, how lovely it glides,

  And winds by the cot where my Mary resides;

  How wanton thy waters her snowy feet lave,

  As gathering sweet flowerets she stems thy clear wave.

  Flow gently, sweet Afton, among thy green braes,

  Flow gently, sweet River, the theme of my lays;

  My Mary’s asleep by thy murmuring stream,

  Flow gently, sweet Afton, disturb not her dream.

  Kenneth McKellar sings it with the sonority of the truly smitten. Peter Morrison sings it more expansively, as if he were gathering the earth’s purest elements into a single song. Jean Redpath sings it as if she were reaching gently for the impossible and Ed Miller sings it wistfully, as if he were addressing a girl from a passing train. Eddi Reader brings to it a beautiful native airiness and Robert Wilson packs it with regret. Peter McCutcheon sings it as if through a fog of self-involvement and Carly Simon as if she were California dreaming. Davy Steele brings it home, investing the words with a simple belief and a show of love. But though Burns had many lasses, for me there can only be one – Mrs McGrath, a traditional Scottish singer, whose unaccompanied version is a wonderful feat of intimacy. She sings as if she intended the song for oneself alone.