Poet and Peasant

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 261, 25 January 1928, Page 8

Poet and Peasant

BIRTHDAY OF ROBERT BURNS Scotland’s Beloved Bard TO-DAY is the 169t1i anniversary ot: the birth of Robert Burns, the national bard of Scotland. Scots the wide world over honour the name of "Rab the Rhymer.” Whatever his defects were, and Robert Burns was nothing if not human in his faults and frailties, there is no doubting the place he holds to-day in the affection of his fellowcountrymen.

SCOTLAND’S life and traditions, Iter hopes and her disappointments, and her pathos and humour were depicted by Burns as no other poet has done. His memory is revered by all classes with a reverence that almost amounts to worship. Burns was a poet of the people. In his own day he was not infrequently termed “a clod-hopper poet,” a somewhat popular if unkind allusion to his humble origin. The poet’s father, a lean, darkcomplexioned man descended from farmer tenants, worked a small hold-

galley slave.” Later he was sent to Kirkoswald for two years’ schooling. But, out of the parental control, he got into the company of smugglers and others, from whom he learned the art of “taking a glass.” The father, anxious to keep the growing boys at home, secured a farm at Tarbolton and young Rab returned there. From that period his career really began. Critics have squandered many hours discussing the respective qualities of Burns, of his knowledge of verse-craft, and debated whether he merely gathered up the ideas of others and acted upon them or actually originated the poems and songs with which his name is linked. What the ordinary man in the street wants to know, however, is what sort of an individual was this Rab the Rhymer. It is recorded that when he returned to his father’s farm at Tarbolton, after two years in the world, he promptly joined the local Masonic lodge, started a debating society, put on airs as a conversatiqnalist, at 19 “was thirsting >jr distinction,” dressed with care, and was by way of being a champion of heretical views and a supporter of liberal ideas in church government. The poet was also anxious to marry, and endeavoured to raise the necessary money by going into flaxdressing with a partner. The scheme failed, Burns alleging that the partner was a swindler. After the death of his father and the break up of the hotne, Rab and his brother Gilbert essayed farming. They earned £7 a year each, but “rantin’, rarin’ Robin” was itching to emulate Ramsay and Ferguson and write of his beloved land. His habits of living and pose as a moral reformer were never quite in keeping with the notions of the straitlaced Scots. TILTED AT CONVENTION

ing in the village of Alloway, two miles from the town of Ayr. Burns’s sister left a description of their mother: “She had a sonsy figure, well made, a beautiful red and white complexion, transparent skin, red hair and dark eyes.” There were seven children and naturally the life was hard. Burns senior was a man of intelligence. He organised the village to hire a schoolmaster. Rab, or Rabbie or Robin (one must not call him Bob or Bobbie) thus obtained two and a-half years’ schooling, intermittently with his brothers, just as the father could afford it. OUT OF CONTROL Burns related that he gained a store of information about devils, elfcandles, dead lights and enchanted towers from Betty Davidson, a maid employed by the family. The life he described as “the cheerless gloom of a hermit with the unceasing toil of a

Following this period and his love affair with Jean Armour, who eventually became his wife, Burns tilted at the clergy and many of the established customs of his people. Plans to leave for America and Jamaica were eventually dropped. The Kilmarnock edition of his works was an enormous success and he became engaged to Mary Campbell. While preparing for the marriage, however, she died. Her memory is immortalised in “To Mary in Heaven.”

Farming was not a success, and the poet eventually obtained a post in the excise department. He was hoping for promotion in the service to which he had been appointed when he died. Perhaps it was his human frailty, as well as his undoubted genius, that has made Robert Burns such an irresistible figure in the literature of his land. He was no hypocrite and he was' no snob. He hated the bigot and he loathed the intolerance of his day with all his heart. Despite his lapses, to quote his own words. Burns essentially was “a man for a’ that and a’ that.”