by Robert Burns
Stake on a chance a farmer’s stackyard,
An’ cheat like ony unhang’d blackguard.
There’s some exceptions, man an’ woman;
But this is Gentry’s life in common.
By this, the sun was out o’ sight,
An’ darker gloamin brought the night:
The bum-clock humm’d wi’ lazy drone,
The kye stood rowtan i’ the loan;
When up they gat, an’ shook their lugs,
Rejoic’d they were na men but dogs;
An’ each took off his several way,
Resolv’d to meet some ither day.
Might it not be the very model of literary empathy to write so well about a mouse? Burns’s pity as well as his creativity was pressed into action after he upset the animal’s nest when going about his labours in the field. During his lifetime Burns was often called ‘the heaven-taught ploughman’, but the glory of the man was to have invented in his writing a heaven on earth, a place where mice and men could share their woes and even extend comfort to each other in the teeth of unknowable fate.
To a Mouse, on Turning Her Up in Her Nest with the Plough, November 1785
Wee, sleeket, cowran, tim’rous beastie,
O, what a panic’s in thy breastie!
Thou need na start awa sae hasty,
Wi’ bickering brattle!
I wad be laith to rin an’ chase thee,
Wi’ murd’ring pattle!
I’m truly sorry Man’s dominion
Has broken Nature’s social union,
An’ justifies that ill opinion,
Which makes thee startle,
At me, thy poor, earth-born companion,
An’ fellow-mortal!
I doubt na, whyles, but thou may thieve;
What then? poor beastie, thou maun live!
A daimen-icker in a thrave
’S a sma’ request:
I’ll get a blessin wi’ the lave,
An’ never miss’t!
Thy wee-bit housie, too, in ruin!
Its silly wa’s the win’s are strewin!
An’ naething, now, to big a new ane,
O’ foggage green!
An’ bleak December’s winds ensuin,
Baith snell an’ keen!
Thou saw the fields laid bare an’ wast,
An’ weary Winter comin fast,
An’ cozie here, beneath the blast,
Thou thought to dwell,
Till crash! the cruel coulter past
Out thro’ thy cell.
That wee-bit heap o’ leaves an’ stibble,
Has cost thee monie a weary nibble!
Now thou’s turn’d out, for a’ thy trouble,
But house or hald,
To thole the Winter’s sleety dribble,
An’ cranreuch cauld!
But, Mousie, thou art no thy-lane,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men,
Gang aft agley,
An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,
For promis’d joy!
Still, thou art blest, compar’d wi’ me!
The present only toucheth thee:
But Och! I backward cast my e’e,
On prospects drear!
An’ forward, tho’ I canna see,
I guess an’ fear!
Our poet would favour patriotic songs on a night out with fellow Scots, but the sober exciseman and admirer of Addison and Pope could just as easily favour the opposite. Yet his blood could doubtless begin to boil at the mere contemplation both of English wrongs and Scottish complicity. To my mind the following song’s greatness is in its hearty encapsulation of a national hobby: wallowing in a chiefly fantastical sense of historical injury. It was already a piece of sentiment by the time Burns wrote it down, but its force is undiminished.
Such a Parcel of Rogues in a Nation
Fareweel to a’ our Scotish fame,
Fareweel our ancient glory;
Fareweel even to the Scotish name,
Sae fam’d in martial story!
Now Sark rins o’er the Solway sands,
And Tweed rins to the ocean,
To mark whare England’s province stands,
Such a parcel of rogues in a nation!
What force or guile could not subdue,
Thro’ many warlike ages,
Is wrought now by a coward few,
For hireling traitors’ wages.
The English steel we could disdain,
Secure in valor’s station;
But English gold has been our bane,
Such a parcel of rogues in a nation!
O would, or I had seen the day
That treason thus could sell us,
My auld grey head had lien in clay,
Wi’ Bruce and loyal WALLACE!
But pith and power, till my last hour,
I’ll mak this declaration;
We’re bought and sold for English gold,
Such a parcel of rogues in a nation!
Scotland and England are the only countries in Europe whose national anthems celebrate the defeat of a now benign neighbour, as if that defeat could summon the essence of Scotland, and England too. Burns could also be perfectly rousing in that mode: he hated tyranny in all forms, and in the absence of a real oppressor he could happily reach into the mists of local time and touch on the horrors of proud Edward I, ‘the Hammer of the Scots’.
Robert Bruce’s March to Bannockburn
Scots, wha hae wi’ WALLACE bled,
Scots, wham BRUCE has aften led,
Welcome to your gory bed,—
Or to victorie.—
Now’s the day, and now’s the hour;
See the front o’ battle lour;
See approach proud EDWARD’s power,
Chains and Slaverie.—
Wha will be a traitor-knave?
Wha can fill a coward’s grave?
Wha sae base as be a Slave?
—Let him turn and flie:—
Wha for SCOTLAND’s king and law,
Freedom’s sword will strongly draw,
FREE-MAN stand, or FREE-MAN fa’,
Let him follow me.—
By Oppression’s woes and pains!
By your Sons in servile chains!
We will drain our dearest veins,
But they shall be free!
Lay the proud Usurpers low!
Tyrants fall in every foe!
LIBERTY’s in every blow!
Let us Do—OR DiE!!!
Scots ballads often work like historical love songs, conjuring lost kings and early graves, giving a simple and personal sound to political woes. They are unforgettable. Burns had a poet’s feeling for the Jacobite cause and could make songs that feel as ancient as grief itself. These ballads are part of the weather in Scotland, words blown with the rain, and they echo through the hills like the murmurs of angels.
There’ll Never Be Peace till Jamie Comes Hame
By yon castle wa’ at the close of the day,
I heard a man sing tho’ his head it was grey;
And as he was singing the tears down came,
There’ll never be peace till Jamie comes hame.—
The Church is in ruins, the State is in jars,
Delusions, oppressions, and murderous wars:
We dare na weel say’t, but we ken wha’s to blame,
There’ll never be peace till Jamie comes hame.—
My seven braw sons for Jamie drew sword,
And now I greet round their green beds in the yerd;
It brak the sweet heart of my faithfu’ auld Dame,
There’ll never be peace till Jamie comes hame.—
Now life is a burden that bows me down,
Sin I tint my bairns, and he tint his crown;
But till my last moments my words are the same,
There’ll never be peace till Jamie comes hame.—
We could write out this poe
m, fold it in four, and press it into the breast pockets of Tony Blair and George W. Bush. With Burns’s permission, and with something of his zeal for political argument, let us dedicate the poem to the memory of those men and women who will never see Logan Braes again.
There have been 4039 Coalition deaths – 3742 Americans, two Australians, 168 Britons, thirteen Bulgarians, one Czech, seven Danes, two Dutch, two Estonians, one Hungarian, thirty-three Italians, one Kazakh, three Latvians, twenty-one Poles, two Romanians, five Salvadorans, four Slovaks, one South Korean, eleven Spaniards, two Thais and eighteen Ukrainians – in the war in Iraq as of 2 September 2007.
It is estimated that 650,000 Iraqis have died.
Logan Braes
O, Logan, sweetly didst thou glide,
That day I was my Willie’s bride;
And years sinsyne hae o’er us run,
Like Logan to the simmer sun.
But now thy flowery banks appear
Like drumlie Winter, dark and drear,
While my dear lad maun face his faes,
Far, far frae me and Logan braes.—
Again the merry month o’ May
Has made our hills and vallies gay;
The birds rejoice in leafy bowers,
The bees hum round the breathing flowers:
Blythe Morning lifts his rosy eye,
And Evening’s tears are tears of joy:
My soul, delightless, a’ surveys,
While Willie’s far frae Logan braes.—
Within yon milkwhite hawthorn bush,
Amang her nestlings sits the thrush;
Her faithfu’ Mate will share her toil,
Or wi’ his song her cares beguile:
But, I wi’ my sweet nurslings here,
Nae Mate to help, nae Mate to cheer,
Pass widowed nights and joyless days,
While Willie’s far frae Logan braes.—
O wae upon you, Men o’ State,
That brethren rouse in deadly hate!
As ye make mony a fond heart mourn,
Sae may it on your heads return!
How can your flinty hearts enjoy
The widow’s tears, the orphan’s cry:
But soon may Peace bring happy days
And Willie, hame to Logan braes!
Ministry of Defence Press Release
It is with very deep regret that the Ministry of Defence has to confirm that Fusilier Gordon Campbell Gentle, of Glasgow, was killed in an improvised explosive device attack on British military vehicles in Basra on 28 June 2004. Aged 19, he served with the First Battalion Royal Highland Fusiliers, and was single.
Lieutenant Colonel Paul Cartwright, the Commanding Officer of the First Battalion Royal Highland Fusiliers, said: ‘His name says it all. As a new member of the battalion, he settled in with ease, happy in the team environment and always willing to help others. His enthusiasm for his job immediately caught the eye of his peers and superiors alike.’ Our thoughts are with his family at this very difficult time.
I Murder Hate
I murder hate by field or flood,
Tho’ glory’s name may screen us;
In wars at home I’ll spend my blood,
Life-giving wars of Venus:
The deities that I adore
Are social Peace and Plenty;
I’m better pleased to make one more,
Than be the death of twenty.—
I would not die like Socrates,
For all the fuss of Plato;
Nor would I with Leonidas,
Nor yet would I with Cato:
The Zealots of the Church, or State,
Shall ne’er my mortal foes be,
But let me have bold ZIMRI’s fate,
Within the arms of COSBI!—
Burns had to conceal his radical sympathies. He didn’t always manage this in the public bar, but because of his views, some of his writing, like ‘The Tree of Liberty’, remained unpublished until forty years after his death. Equality was an obsession: a difficult life had by the end left him hoarse for the virtues of democracy. He admired the Revolution in France, and we may read this poem as evidence of Burns’s higher hopes for mankind – his opposition to the wiles of tyranny – while appreciating too how an American-style zeal for ‘democracy’, in our own day, can threaten to shackle the minds of the people.
The Tree of Liberty
Heard ye o’ the tree o’ France,
I watna what’s the name o’t;
Around it a’ the patriots dance,
Weel Europe kens the fame o’t.
It stands where ance the Bastille stood,
A prison built by kings, man,
When Superstition’s hellish brood
Kept France in leading strings, man.
Upo’ this tree there grows sic fruit,
Its virtues a’ can tell, man;
It raises man aboon the brute,
It maks him ken himsel, man.
Gif ance the peasant taste a bit,
He’s greater than a lord, man,
An’ wi’ the beggar shares a mite
O’ a’ he can afford, man.
This fruit is worth a’ Afric’s wealth,
To comfort us ’twas sent, man:
To gie the sweetest blush o’ health,
An’ mak us a’ content, man.
It clears the een, it cheers the heart,
Maks high and low gude friends, man;
And he wha acts the traitor’s part
It to perdition sends, man.
My blessings aye attend the chiel
Wha pitied Gallia’s slaves, man,
And staw a branch, spite o’ the deil,
Frae yont the western waves, man.
Fair Virtue water’d it wi’ care,
And now she sees wi’ pride, man,
How weel it buds and blossoms there,
Its branches spreading wide, man.
But vicious folks aye hate to see
The works o’ Virtue thrive, man;
The courtly vermin’s banned the tree,
And grat to see it thrive, man;
King Loui’ thought to cut it down,
When it was unco sma’, man;
For this the watchman cracked his crown,
Cut aff his head and a’, man.
A wicked crew syne, on a time,
Did tak a solemn aith, man,
It ne’er should flourish to its prime,
I wat they pledged their faith, man.
Awa’ they gaed wi’ mock parade,
Like beagles hunting game, man,
But soon grew weary o’ the trade
And wished they’d been at hame, man.
For Freedom, standing by the tree,
Her sons did loudly ca’, man;
She sang a sang o’ liberty,
Which pleased them ane and a’, man.
By her inspired, the new-born race
Soon grew the avenging steel, man;
