ROBERT BURNS, THE ARDENT LOVER.

Digger (Invercargill RSA), Issue 25, 3 September 1920, Page 13

ROBERT BURNS, THE ARDENT LOVER.

Thornton Hall.

From the day when Robert Burns vowed in one of his earliest rhymes that he loved his "handsome Nell," to the last year of his life, love and poetry were, he confesses, "at times, his only and his highest enjoyments." In love he was ever a child of nature, giving free rein to his natural impulses, losing his heart at first sight of a bonny face and recapturing it when his brief passion cooled down — only to lose it again and again in a similar brief-lived rapture. He was only in his "fifteenth autumn" when a "bonnie, sweet, sonsie lass," his partner in the harvest field, first "initiated him in that delicious passion," which, he says, "I hold to be the first of human joys." The tones of her voice made his beart-strings "thrill like an Aeolian harp," and his pulse "beat a furious ratan when he fingered her little hand to pick out the the cruel nettle-stings and thistles."

"SWEET HIGHLAND MARY." 1 And from that day we find him pouring out his fickle heart to one bonnie lassie after another — to Mary Morison, to the nameless beauties who lived on Cessnock bank, and "Behind yon hills where Stinokar fiows, " to the "six proper young helles who dwell in Mauchline," and so on, through the long list of his fugitive, if ardent, adventures in love. To Mary Campbell, alone of them all, he seems to have given his heart in tuU, pur,e, and lasting surrender — the "sw«ct Highland Mary" who was snatched so craelly and tragically from his arms by death after that beautiful meeti.ig in which, Bible in hahd, they mutually pledged undying love. How deep this love was and how profound his grief is shown by that sublime and pathetic lament, )jis poem, "To Mary in Heaven," wrifcen on the anniversary of the day on whicii he heard of his loss : — O Mary, dear departed shade, Where is thy place of blisst.il nest ''

"BONNY JEAN." j But though his dead love was sf'brined j for ever, sacred and unapproachab'e in ! Burns's heart, the hot blood still raced j through his veins and imperiously denvandI ed an outlet. He seemed to he as poA'er. less as ever to resist the lure of a pretty face and a tempting waist. There were lassies in plenty, in Mauchline aicne, whose sweetest smiles were resem-d for the handsome young farmer with tbo magnetic eyes which none of them cnld, or eared, to resist. But the most alluring of them all had to give place to the seductions of Bormy Jean Armour "Bonny Jean," indeed, seems to 1 ave had little difficulty in catching L'obl ie's too susceptible heart in her toils, and setting his pulses beating to a dangerous tune ; for within a few months. of tbeir i first ramble together, we are told. sb.e found herself "as ladies wish to be tlat love their lords." The hot-bloodoi faimer had this time loved "not wuety bv.t too well," though, to his credit, lc-t it be said that, to quote his brother Gilbert, ' bitl erto his numerous connections had been gov. erned by the strictest rules of virtu-S and modesty." But, although such lapses were lightly regarded among the lower classes of Scotland in those days, so long as timely marriages averted the worst consequences of the in&iscretion, Burns was not to escape thus easily. Jean's father, a highlyre.spectable master-mason, proud of his daughter and of his unblemished fnpni-y honour, was furious at this outrag,e — the more that the man responsible for it wu a "beggarly farmer," his social inferior ; a man, moreover, notorious for his loose living. He was blind to Jean's tears, deaf to her entreaties for forgiveness. As for Burns, when he learned Jean s condition, the news "staggered him l.'ke a blow." He was desperate, and in his despair decided to leave the counfcry. fo his friend. James Smith, of Mauchline, he wrote : "Against two things I am fixed as fate—- staying at home and owning hm conjugally. The first, by Heaven, I will not do ! the last, by hell, I will never tio. If you s.ee Jean, tell her I will meet her. so lielp me God in my hour of r.eed." AN "IRREGULAR" MARRIAGE. Wliat happened at the meeting ohat followed between the two lovers we do n: t know. W.e only know that, before r-hey separated. Burns had handed to Jean a written acknowledgrnent of marriage, which, when produced by a person Ti Miss Armour's condition is, according to the Scots law, "to be accepted as legal evidence of an irregular marriage; it beiig understood that the marriage was io be formally avowed as soon as the consequences of their indiscretion could i.o longer be concealed from the family." So far, however, from appeasing t?ie master-mason, this acknowledgrnent — insult added to injui'y — fanned bis anger into

still more furious fiame ; and he insisted on his daughter destroying the document, the one shield that could cover her shame. abysmal despair. Then followed for Burns the bitterest period of his life — a time of abysmal despair, of threatened insanity ; of frantic efforts to find a way of escape from --^s cruel dilemma. From "misfortune's bitter blast" he was about to fiy to Jamaica, when the publication of his first hook of poems and its rapturous reception called a halt on his way'' to Greenock and embarkation. The tide of fortune had at last turned for him. He soon found himself a literary and social lion, with money pouring in from a second edition of his poems. And the day quickly came when he was able to make an "honest woman" and a loving and loyal wife of the girl his passion had betrayed ; and to inaugurate on his new Ellesland farm the happiest period of his life, with a "wife o' mine ane," to whom he was soon addressing the impassioned lines : — Oh, were I on Parnassus hill, Or had of Helicon my fill, That I might catch poetic skill To sing how dear I love tlree !