BAY OF PLENTY BEACON Published Tuesdays and Fridays. FRIDAY, JANUARY 23, 1948 BURNS, POET OF THE PEOPLE

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 12, Issue 15, 23 January 1948, Page 4

BAY OF PLENTY BEACON Published Tuesdays and Fridays. FRIDAY, JANUARY 23, 1948 BURNS, POET OF THE PEOPLE

Robert Burns, poet of the people, interpreter of the spirit of Scotland, was born on January 25 (some authorities say January 29) 1759, at a small cottage in the parish of Alloway, about two miles south-west of the town of Ayr, son of William Burness, who cultivated seven acres as a nurseryman. He died on July 21, 1796. Most of his life • was spent in poverty, or near poverty. Yet he attained wide recognition during his lifetime. His character was far from blameless. His dealings with the lassies were promiscuous and unrestrained. In the latter years of his life he drank excessively. But, through his works shines the proud spirit of the unconquerable Scot. In his poems Burns interpreted the national character of his countrymen as no other has ever done.

Sinner he may have been. Hypocrite he would have scorned to be. Just what he thought of that slinking, self-righteous breed, given masterly expression in “Holy Willie’s Prayer,” will find an echo in every true Scottish heart to the end of time. Though he had a certain Jacobite and Tory tone of political sentiment at times, Burns had a freedom of expression that was utterly fearless and truly democratic. His was the pride of the true Scot —the knowledge that “A mon’s a mon for A’ That” — the pride of true worth and the recognition of it in others. For the Scots, perhaps more than any other breed on earth, value a man for what he is rather than for what he has.

Burns was free of snobbery. Crawlers and lickspittles of all sorts he abhorred. The arrows of his scorn were poison-barbed. Where he saw a wrong he clamoured that it should be righted. When it is realised in what day he wrote, and that his family depended upon his salary as an exciseman in the pay of the King, the man’s courage commands respect above the ordinary. For Robert Burns gave the world the benefit of his opinion on burning topics of the day with no pulling of the punches for fear of possible consequences. Yet this man who dared revile the great, whose searching satire made him feared as well as respected, could be softly tender. His the voice that dared express the deep sentiment so often locked within the Scottish heart, imprisoned by a native reticence. His the insight that could search the souls and express the latent romanticism of a people reserved but highly imaginative. Considering that his origin was humble and his education restricted by his means, Burns’s versatility as a poet is remarkable. His biographers record, moreover, that he was a brilliant conversationist, though not forward in talking unless he had something substantial to say.

He must also have had a remarkable personality, for it is recorded that wherever he went he soon got to know all sorts of leading people, and had unsolicited patronage from many celebrities of the day. Possibly the explanation was that even then it was recognised that Burns’s writings typified the true Scot, with all his distinctive faculties and foibles. Thus the bard achieved his immortality amongst his countrymen. His native humour, his uncanny insight into human nature and his gift of driving home ; ‘dh idea have earned him his place in the libraries of all nations amongst the great whose greatness places them above nationality.