by Robert Burns
In descriptive power and in fond and reverent love no poem of Burns, or any other writer, surpasses Sweet Afton. Authorities have been divided in regard to the person who was the Mary of Sweet Afton. Currie and Lockhart declined to accept the statement of Gilbert Burns that it was Highland Mary. Chambers and Douglas, the most illuminating and reliable of the early biographers of Burns, agree with Gilbert. One of Mrs Dunlop’s daughters stated that she heard Burns himself say that Mary Campbell was the woman whose name he used to represent the lover for whom he asked such reverent consideration. He had no lover at any period of his life on the Afton. He had but one lover named Mary, and she stirred him to a degree of reverence that toned the music of his love to the end of his life. Mary Campbell was alive to Burns in a truly realistic sense when he wrote the sacred poem ‘Sweet Afton.’
In ‘O were my Love yon Lilac Fair’ he assumes that his love might be
A lilac fair,
Wi’ purpling blossoms in the spring,
And I a bird to shelter there,
When wearied on my little wing.
In the second verse he says:
O gin my love were yon red rose if
That grows upon the castle wa’;
And I mysel’ a drop o’ dew,
Into her bonie breast to fa’!
Could imagination kindle more pure ideals to reveal love than these? In ‘Bonie Jean — A Ballad’ he gives two delightful pictures of love:
As in the bosom of the stream
The moonbeam dwells at dewy e’en;
So trembling, pure, was tender love
Within the breast of Bonie Jean.
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The sun was sinking in the west,
The birds sang sweet in ilka grove; every
His cheek to hers he fondly laid,
And whispered thus his tale of love.
In ‘Phillis the Fair’ he writes:
While larks, with little wing, fann’d the pure air,
Tasting the breathing spring, forth did I fare;
Gay the sun’s golden eye
Peep’d o’er the mountains high;
Such thy morn! did I cry, Phillis the fair.
In each bird’s careless song glad did I share;
While yon wild-flow’rs among, chance led me there!
Sweet to the op’ning day,
Rosebuds bent the dewy spray;
Such thy bloom! did I say, Phillis the fair.
In ‘By Allan Stream’ he describes the glories of Nature, but gives them second place to the joys of love:
The haunt o’ spring’s the primrose-brae,
The summer joys the flocks to follow;
How cheery thro’ her short’ning day
Is autumn in her weeds o’ yellow;
But can they melt the glowing heart,
Or chain the soul in speechless pleasure?
Or thro’ each nerve the rapture dart,
Like meeting her, our bosom’s treasure?
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.
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‘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.
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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 ha
ppiness 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:
