by Robert Burns
A heart that warmly seems to feel;
That feelin heart but acks a part, acts
‘Tis rakish art in Rob Mossgiel.
The frank address, the soft caress,
Are worse than poisoned darts of steel,
The frank address, and politesse,
Are all finesse in Rob Mossgiel.
The explosion of print culture from the 1770s had obviously penetrated into provincial Ayrshire. Burns’s reading of what we now perceive as the canonical eighteenth-century English novelists is a fundamental element of his creative awareness. He responded to the opposing versions of sexuality found in Fielding (Tom Jones) and Richardson (Sir Charles Grandison); from the picaresque Jack-the-laddish to the lachrymose, claustrophobic hot-house. Though unmentioned here, Sterne’s labyrinthine form and psychological development as well as his obsessive preoccupation with double entendres were also avidly consumed and reactivated in Burns’s work and life. There is, of course, a considerable degree of self-parody and self-irony present in the poem, playing on the poet’s excessive reputation as a womaniser. For Burns’s relationship to Sterne, see K. G. Simpson, ‘The Impulse of Wit: Sterne and Burns’s Letters’ in The Art of Robert Burns, ed. Jack & Noble (London, 1982), pp. 151–90.
The Mauchline Lady
Tune: I Had a Horse, and I Had nae Mair
First printed in Cromek, 1808.
When first I came to Stewart Kyle
My mind it was na steady, not
Where’er I gaed, where’er I rade, went, rode
A mistress still I had ay:
But when I came roun’ by Mauchline toun, round, town
Not dreadin any body,
My heart was caught before I thought,
And by a Mauchline lady —.
The first written record of this work is entered in the First Commonplace Book, dated August 1785, although the fragment was probably written before this date. The ‘Mauchline lady’ is assumed to be Jean Armour. Burns met Jean after he moved from Lochlie to Mossgiel.
The Twa Herds: An Unco Mournfu’ Tale
or The Holy Tulzie brawl
First printed by Stewart and Meikle in pamphlet form, 1796.
Blockheads with reason wicked wits abhor,
But fool with fool is barbarous civil war.
Pope, Dunciad, Bk. III, ll. 175–6.
O a’ ye pious, godly Flocks all
Weel fed on pastures orthodox, well
Wha now will keep you frae the fox who, from
Or worryin tykes? dogs
5 Or wha will tent the waifs an’ crocks who, tend, stragglers, old ewes
About the dykes? stone walls
The twa best Herds in a’ the wast, two, west
That e’er gae gospel horn a blast gave
These five an’ twenty simmers past, summers
10 O dool to tell! sad
Hae had a bitter, black out cast have, quarrel
Atween themsel. — between
O Moodie, man, and wordy Russel,
How could you raise so vile a bustle?
15 Ye’ll see how New-Light herds will whistle,
And think it fine!
The Lord’s cause gat na sic a twistle got not such a twist
Sin’ I hae min’. — since, can recall
O Sirs! whae’er wad hae expeckit whoever would have expected
20 Your duty ye wad sae negleckit? would so neglect
Ye wha were no by lairds respeckit, who, respected
To wear the Plaid;
But by the very Brutes eleckit elected
To be their Guide. —
25 What Flock wi’ Moodie’s Flock could rank,
Sae hale an’ hearty every shank? so, leg
Nae poison’d soor Arminian stank no, sour, stagnant pool
He let them taste;
But Calvin’s fountain-head they drank,
30 That was a feast!
The Fulmart, Wil-cat, Brock, an’ Tod polecat, wildcat, badger, fox
Weel kend his voice thro’ a’ the wood; well knew
He knew their ilka hole an’ road, every
Baith out and in: both
35 An’ liked weel to shed their blood well
An’ sell their skin. —
What herd like Russell tell’d his tale;
His voice was heard thro’ muir and dale: moor
He kend the Lord’s sheep ilka tail, knew, every
40 O’er a’ the height;
An’ tell’d gin they were sick or hale when/if, well
At the first sight. —
He fine a maingie sheep could scrub, dirty
Or nobly swing the Gospel-club;
45 Or New-Light Herds could nicely drub
And pay their skin; flog
Or hing them o’er the burning dub, hang, pool
Or shute them in. — heave
Sic twa — O, do I live to see’t, such two
50 Sic famous twa sud disagree’t such, two, should
An’ names like ‘Villain, Hypocrite,’
Each other gi’en; giving
While enemies wi’ laughin spite
Say, ‘Neither’s liein.’ — lying
55 O ye wha tent the Gospel-fauld, who pay heed to, fold
Thee, Duncan deep, and Peebles, shaul, shallow
But chiefly great Apostle Auld,
We trust in thee,
That thou wilt work them hot an’ cauld cold
60 To gar them gree. — agree
Consider, Sirs, how we’re beset;
There ’s scarce a new Herd that we get
But comes frae ’mang that cursed Set from among
I winna name: will not
65 I trust in Heaven to see them het hot
Yet in a flame. —
There’s D’rymple has been lang our fae, Dalrymple, long, foe
M’Gill has wrought us meikle wae; great mischief
An’ that curst rascal ca’d Mcquhey, called
70 An’ baith the Shaws, both
Wha aft hae made us black an’ blae often have, blue
Wi’ vengefu’ paws. —
Auld Wodrow lang has wrought mischief, old, long
We trusted death wad bring relief; would
75 But he has gotten, to our grief,
Ane to succeed him; one
A chap will soundly buff our beef strike our flesh
I meikle dread him. — greatly
An’ mony mae that I could tell many more
80 Wha fair and openly rebel; who
Forby Turn-coats amang oursel, besides, among ourselves
There ’s Smith for ane; one
I doubt he’s but a Gray-neck still a gambler
An’ that ye’ll fin’. — find
85 O a’ ye flocks o’er a’ the hills,
By mosses, meadows, moors, an’ fells,
Come, join your counsel and your skills
To cowe the Lairds, humble
And get the Brutes the power themsels themselves
90 To chuse their Herds. — chose
Then Orthodoxy yet may prance,
And Learning in a woody dance; hangman’s noose
An’ that curst cur ca’d Common Sense called
That bites sae sair, so sore
95 Be banish’d o’er the sea to France
Let him bark there. —
Then Shaw’s an’ Dairymple’s eloquence,
M’Gill’s close nervous excellence,
Mcquhey’s pathetic manly sense,
100 An’ guid M’Math, good
Wi’ Smith wha thro’ the heart can glance, who
May a’ pack aff. — go packing
This work was written prior to Holy Willie’s Prayer, probably late in 1784 or early in 1785. It first appeared with Stewart and Meikle in pamphlet form, probably just after the poet’s death and again in 1799 and then in book format in their main 1801 collection.
It is a satire on a public row that erupted between two clerics, Mr A
lexander Moodie of Riccarton and Mr John Russel of Kilmarnock. Their disagreement over parish boundaries led to a Church court hearing at Irvine in which both men, Auld Licht Calvinists, engaged in what Burns called a ‘bitter and shameless quarrel … at the time when the hue and cry against patronage was at the worst’ (British Museum, Egerton ms., no. 1656). He thought highly enough of it to write in some detail about it in his ‘autobiographical’ letter to Dr Moore:
—The first of my poetic offspring that saw the light was a burlesque lamentation on a quarrel between two revd. Calvinists, both of them dramatis personae in my Holy Fair.— I had an idea myself that the piece had some merit; but to prevent the worst, I gave a copy of it to a friend who was very fond of these things, and told him I could not guess who was the Author of it, but that I thought it pretty clever.— With a certain side of both clergy and laity it met a roar of applause.— Holy Willie’s Prayer next made its appearance and alarmed the kirk-Session so much that they held three several meetings to look over their holy artillery, if any of it was pointed against profane Rhymers.— Unluckily for me, my idle wanderings led me, on another side, point blank within the reach of their heaviest metal (Letter 125).
His ‘idle wanderings’, of course, were sexual. The consequences of Jean Armour’s pregnancy, the hostility of her family and the punitive engagement of the church in the business pushed him towards Jamaica for fear of something worse:
I had for some time been sculking fromcovert to covert under all the terrors of Jail; as some ill-advised ungrateful people had uncoupled the merciless legal Pack at my heels … (Letter 125).
There is always in Burns something of the hunted fox pursued by varied packs. The younger man always thought he was crafty enough to outrun them. What he gives witness to in this poem is the degree to which his specific, personal confrontation with provincial Ayrshire, ‘Auld Licht’ Calvinism led him to a wider understanding of the struggle for the soul of Presbyterian Scotland between ‘Auld’ and ‘New’ Licht Calvinism. Kinsley gives a cogent account of this quarrel as, after the convulsions of the seventeenth century, it raged unremittingly through the eighteenth century.
By the patronage Act of 1712 (10 Annae cap. 21) the right of presenting ministers to vacant parishes was restored to the lay patrons who were heirs of the original donors of ecclesiastical properties. This violated the Act of Security (1707) which protected the polity of the Presbyterian Kirk at the Union of the Parliaments. Patronage was accepted by the ‘Moderate’ core of the Kirk, which after the Revolution of 1688 had acquiesced in the co-operation of the ecclesiastical and civil powers; but the issue brought about a secession in 1732, when an Act of Assembly gave the power of election to heritors and elders whenever the patron did not exercise his right. A further dispute took place in 1747 over the Burgher’s Oath, which required holders of public office to affirm the religion ‘presently professed in this kingdom’. ‘To a sober Presbyterian no proposition seemed more self-evident. Yet by means of perverse ingenuity in torturing words, did these wrong-headed men insist that it was inconsistent with their principles and professions’ (Ramsay of Ochtertyre, ii. 12); and the ‘Anti-Burghers’ seceded. The two parties formed ‘distinct and independent synods, which hated each other worse than the Jesuits did the Jansenists’ (ibid., ii. 13). The Burghers later divided on the issue of civil compulsion in religious affairs. The minority, holding to the obligations laid upon them by the Solemn League and Covenant, seceded as ‘Original Burghers’ or ‘Auld Lichts’; the majority, who wished to modify Presbyterian commitment to the Covenant, were named ‘New Lichts.’
Below differences in attitude to the establishment, these terms represent a deeper distinction of theology and temperament. The ‘Auld Lichts’ were ‘orthodox’, Calvinist — with traditional emphasis on the doctrines of original sin, election, and predestination—stern in their discipline, evangelical and rhetorical in their preaching. The ‘New Lichts’ were ‘Arminian’ (see ll. 27–30 n.), ‘Moderate’, liberal in their theology and moralistic in their preaching (Vol. III, pp. 1045–6).
At the core of the poem, however, is a deeply serious spiritual problem. The image of the shepherd and his sheep, the nature of pastoral care, runs through both Old and New Testaments. For example Ezek. 34 which condemns shepherds who ‘feed themselves’ but ‘feed not the flock’, the parable of the good shepherd (John 10) or Christ’s final appearance when he commands him to ‘feed my lambs’ (John 21:15). Milton, of course, in Lycidas had raged against those priests who had inverted, perverted Christ’s pastoral instruction. To McGuirk’s seminal work on Miltonic resonance in Burns, including Lycidas (‘Loose Canons: Milton and Burns, Artsong and Folksong’, Love and Liberty, ed. K.G. Simpson, 1997), we should surely add this passage from that poem as relevant to Burns’s assault on clerical corruption:
He shook his mitred locks, and stern bespake,
How well could I have spared for thee, young swain,
Enow of such as for their bellies’ sake,
Creep and intrude, and climb into the fold?
Of other care they little reckoning make,
Than how to scramble at the shearers’ feast,
And shove away the worthy bidden guest.
Blind mouths! that scarce themselves know how to hold
A sheep-hook, or have learned aught else the least
That to the faithful herdman’s art belongs!
What recks it them? What need they? They are sped;
And when they list, their lean and flashy songs
Grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw,
The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed,
But swoll’n with wind, and the rank mist they draw,
Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread:
Besides what the grim wolf with privy paw
Daily devours apace, and nothing said,
But that two-handed engine at the door,
Stands ready to smite once, and smite no more.
Holy Willie’s Prayer
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. —
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. —
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. —
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. —
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’. — from, all
But yet — O Lord — confess I must —
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. —
O Lord — yestreen — Thou kens — wi’ Meg — 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. —
Besides, I farther maun avow, must
50 Wi’ Leezie’s lass, three times — I trow —
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. — 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. —
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. —
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. — 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
