songwriters-from-scotland

"In the gloaming, oh, my darling! When the lights are dim and low, And the quiet shadows, falling, Softly come and softly go."

"It's safe to say that Bruce is the least prominent member of the legendary power trio Cream. That said, Bruce was more than capable of holding his own with bandmates Eric Clapton and Ginger Baker within the confines of the band that gave us iconic rock tracks such as "White Room" and "Sunshine of Your Love." Trained in classical music and proficient in jazz, Bruce also spent time playing the blues rock associated with Cream. His ability to adapt and excel in several genres of music was a massive part of his greatness. That versatility remains one of the defining characteristics of his professional legacy."

"You'll leave this theatre in a different state."

"Name the leaves on all the trees, Name the waves on all the seas, Name the notes of all the groves, Thus thou namest all my loves.I do love the young, the old, Maiden modest, virgin bold; Tiny beauties and the tall— Earth has room enough for all!Which is better—who can say?— Mary grave or Lucy gay? She who half her charms conceals, She who flashes while she feels?Why should I my love confine? Why should fair be mine or thine? If I praise a tulip, why Should I pass the primrose by?Paris was a pedant fool Meting beauty by the rule: Pallas? Juno? Venus?—he Should have chosen all the three!"

"Rocking on a lazy billow With roaming eyes, Cushioned on a dreamy pillow, Thou art now wise. Wake the power within thee slumbering, Trim the plot that's in thy keeping, Thou wilt bless the task when reaping Sweet labour's prize."

"Converse with men makes sharp the glittering wit, But God to man doth speak in solitude."

"Order is the law of all intelligible existence."

"Men of Harlech! On to glory, See your banner, famed in story, Waves these burning words before ye, "Britain scorns to yield!""

"She's mad for refusing the Laird o' Cockpen."

"There's nae sorrow there, John, There's neither cauld nor care, John, The day is aye fair, In the land o' the leal."

"A penniless lass wi' a lang pedigree."

"Oh, we ’re a’ noddin’, nid, nid, noddin’; Oh, we ’re a’ noddin’ at our house at hame."

"Gude nicht, and joy be wi' you a'."

"There's a hope for every woe, And a balm for every pain, But the first joys of our heart Come never back again!"

"The smallest effort is not lost, Each wavelet on the ocean tost Aids in the ebb-tide or the flow; Each rain-drop makes some floweret blow; Each struggle lessens human woe."

"Some love to roam o’er the dark sea’s foam, Where the shrill winds whistle free."

"Aid the dawning, tongue and pen; Aid it, hopes of honest men!"

"The king can drink the best of wine; So can I: And has enough when he would dine — So have I; He cannot order rain or shine; Nor can I. Then, where's the difference — let me see — Betwixt my lord the king and me?"

"Old Tubal Cain was a man of might In the days when earth was young."

"But among all the instances of the interference of governments with men’s hair, the most extraordinary, not only for its daring, but for its success, is that of Peter the Great, in 1705. By this time fashion had condemned the beard in every other country in Europe, and with a voice more potent than popes or emperors, had banished it from civilised society. But this only made the Russians cling more fondly to their ancient ornament, as a mark to distinguish them from foreigners, whom they hated."

"There’s a good time coming, boys! A good time coming. We may not live to see the day, But earth shall glisten in the ray Of the good time coming. Cannon-balls may aid the truth But thought’s a weapon stronger; We’ll win our battles by its aid, Wait a little longer."

"I wear the cap and he the crown;— What of that? I sleep on straw and he on down;— What of that? And he's the king and I'm the clown;— What of that? If happy I, — and wretched he, — Perhaps the king would change with me!"

"They may veil their eyes, but they cannot hide The sun’s meridian glow; The heel of a priest may tread thee down, And a tyrant work thee woe: But never a truth has been destroyed; They may curse it, and call it crime; Pervert and betray, or slander and slay Its teachers for a time. But the sunshine aye shall light the sky, As round and round we run; And the truth shall ever come uppermost, And justice shall be done."

"What dost thou see, lone watcher on the tower Is the day breaking? comes the wish'd-for hour? Tell us the signs, and stretch abroad thy hand If the bright morning dawns upon the land.""The stars are clear above me, scarcely one Has dimm'd its rays in reverence to the sun; But yet I see, on the horizon's verge, Some fair, faint streaks, as if the light would surge."

"An epidemic terror of the end of the world has several times spread over the nations. The most remarkable was that which seized Christendom about the middle of the tenth century. Numbers of fanatics appeared in France, Germany, and Italy at that time, preaching that the thousand years prophesied in the Apocalypse as the term of the world’s duration were about to expire, and that the Son of Man would appear in the clouds to judge the godly and the ungodly. The delusion appears to have been discouraged by the Church, but it nevertheless spread rapidly among the people."

"The tulip — so named, it is said, from a Turkish word, signifying a turban — was introduced into western Europe about the middle of the sixteenth century. Conrad Gesner, who claims the merit of having brought it into repute — little dreaming of the commotion it was shortly afterwards to make in the world — says that he first saw it in the year 1559, in a garden at Augsburg, belonging to the learned Counsellor Herwart, a man very famous in his day for his collection of rare exotics. The bulbs were sent to this gentleman by a friend at Constantinople, where the flower had long been a favourite."

"Credulity is always greatest in times of calamity."

"Of all the nations in the world the French are the most renowned for singing over their grievances. Of that country it has been remarked with some truth, that its whole history may be traced in its songs."

"Every age has its peculiar folly; some scheme, project, or phantasy into which it plunges, spurred on either by the love of gain, the necessity of excitement, or the mere force of imitation. Failing in these, it has some madness, to which it is goaded by political or religious causes, or both combined."

"You have no enemies, you say? Alas, my friend, the boast is poor; He, who has mingled in the fray Of duty that the brave endure, Must have made foes! If you have none, Small is the work that you have done, You've hit no traitor on the hip, You've dashed no cup from perjured lip, You've never turned the wrong to right, You've been a coward in the fight."

"Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one."

"Nations, like individuals, cannot become desperate gamblers with impunity. Punishment is sure to overtake them sooner or later."

"He who walks through a great city to find subjects for weeping, may, God knows, find plenty at every corner to wring his heart; but let such a man walk on his course, and enjoy his grief alone — we are not of those who would accompany him. The miseries of us poor earthdwellers gain no alleviation from the sympathy of those who merely hunt them out to be pathetic over them. The weeping philosopher too often impairs his eyesight by his woe, and becomes unable from his tears to see the remedies for the evils which he deplores. Thus it will often be found that the man of no tears is the truest philanthropist, as he is the best physician who wears a cheerful face, even in the worst of cases."

"During seasons of great pestilence, men have often believed the prophecies of crazed fanatics, that the end of the world was come."

"The intrigues of unworthy courtiers to gain the favour of still more unworthy kings, or the records of murderous battles and sieges, have been dilated on, and told over and over again, with all the eloquence of style and all the charms of fancy; while the circumstances which have most deeply affected the morals and welfare of the people have been passed over with but slight notice, as dry and dull, and capable of neither warmth nor colouring."

"The over-bearing insolence of ignorant men, who had arisen to sudden wealth by successful gambling, made men of true gentility of mind and manners blush that gold should have power to raise the unworthy in the scale of society."

"The demand for tulips of a rare species increased so much in the year 1636, that regular marts for their sale were established on the Stock Exchange of Amsterdam, in Rotterdam, Harlaem, Leyden, Alkmar, Hoorn, and other towns."

"For more than a thousand years the art of alchymy captivated many noble spirits, and was believed in by millions. Its origin is involved in obscurity. Some of its devotees have claimed for it an antiquity coeval with the creation of man himself, others, again, would trace it no further back than the time of Noah."

"The prophecies of Nostradamus consist of upwards of a thousand stanzas, each of four lines, and are to the full as obscure as the oracles of old. They take so great a latitude, both as to time and space, that they are almost sure to be fulfilled somewhere or other in the course of a few centuries."

"Cleon hath a million acres,— ne’er a one have I; Cleon dwelleth in a palace, — in a cottage I."

"There was a world of well-dressed company that evening in Dumfries; for the aristocracy of the adjacent country for twenty miles round had poured in to attend a county ball, and were fluttering in groupes along the sunny side of the street, gay as butterflies. On the other side, in the shade, a solitary individual paced slowly along the pavement. Of the hundreds who fluttered past, no one took notice of him; no one seemed to recognise him. He was known to them all as the exciseman and poet, Robert Burns; but he had offended the stately Toryism of the district by the freedom of his political creed; and so, tainted by the plague of Liberalism, he lay under strict quarantine. He was shunned and neglected; for it was with the man Burns that these his contemporaries had to deal. Let the reader contrast with this truly melancholy scene, the scene of his festival a fortnight since. Here are the speeches of the Earl of Eglinton and of Sir John M'Neill, and here the toast of the Lord Justice-General. Let us just imagine these gentlemen, with all their high aristocratic notions about them, carried back half a century into the past, and dropped down, on the sad evening to which we refer, in the main street of Dumfries. Which side, does the reader think, would they have chosen to walk upon? Would they have addressed the one solitary individual in the shade, or not rather joined themselves to the gay groupes in the sunshine who neglected and contemned him? They find it an easy matter to deal with the phantom idea of Burns now: how would they have dealt with the man then?"

"Burns had intellectual breadth and religious susceptibility enough to appropriate what was best in the two phases of the religious thought of his time. Thus it happened that while the average Moderate looked upon Calvinism as represented by the Covenanters as a detestable fanaticism, an enemy to the amenities of social life, Burns paid tribute to their magnificent stand for liberty... Burns, who had Covenanting blood in his veins, had no need to go to Rousseau for his democratic fervour. His "A man's a man for a' that" owes infinitely more to Samuel Rutherford than to Rousseau."

"The worker is a mere appendage to the capitalist factory. Machinery has eliminated him. Robert Burns said: “O God, that men should be so cheap, and bread should be so dear!”"

"The economic truths of Socialism, its industrialism, and its sociology, must remain the vainest of vain dreamings unless we preserve among the people the political frame of mind which can appreciate democratic liberty and worth. When "a man's a man for a' that" is recited without making the blood tingle, the man has ceased to be."

"He was a leading Liberal, certainly. It had been said by a great statesman in the old days that he did not care who made the laws so long as he could make the ballads. In the last century the accents of freedom were heard in Scotland in the ballads of Burns. "Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled" and "A man's a man for a' that" were regarded as almost revolutionary in the days when he wrote."

"The influence of Burns on the imaginative literature of Scotland has been deep and abiding. Many Scotsmen have been so touched, moved, and stirred by his writings, as to arouse an irrepressible feeling within them to compose verse themselves; and to-day there are many in the humble walks of life who can write passable and even animated verse and song, and appreciate the highest works of the imaginative and elaborate faculties of the race. Burns has exercised much influence over the mind of the Scottish people by removing prejudice and superstition, fostering liberty and independence of spirit, and greater freedom of thought."

"I think Burns was one of the most extraordinary men I ever met with; his poetry surprised me very much, his prose surprised me still more, and his conversation surprised me more than both his poetry and prose."

"He has given voice to all the experiences of common life; he has endeared the farm-house and cottage, patches and poverty, beans and barley; ale, the poor man's wine; hardship, the fear of debt, the dear society of weans and wife, of brothers and sisters, proud of each other, knowing so few, and finding amends for want and obscurity in books and thought. ... And, as he was thus the poet of the poor, anxious, cheerful, working humanity, so had he the language of low life. He grew up in a rural district, speaking a patois unintelligible to all but natives, and he has made that Lowland Scotch a Doric dialect of fame. It is the only example in history of a language made classic by the genius of a single man."

"There was neither fortune nor title in the man's pedigree, and yet he sprang from the salt of the earth, for he came from that lowland Scottish peasant stock which was one of the finest stocks that the world could show, if one might judge from its results. The limitations of these men might be marked, but there sprang from them every now and again one who could voice the feelings of his fellow men, and such a man was Robert Burns."

"He speaks for a community he is rooted in, as Chaucer and Langland did. He is a lyrical poet of simple tenderness; but he is also a comic and satirical poet with a hard and definite moral vision, a very sharp eye indeed for permanent kinds of human folly, and a glancing and flickering wit... He is also a poet of the people as no modern English poet worth anything has been. He thus fills a gap for the English reader; and if young English poets, ingenious but academic, were to read him to-day they might learn to double their strength by touching the earth."