Poets From Scotland

"Their great national poet spoke to Scotland in her language, that he read the hearts of her people, and gave eloquent utterance to their dumb thoughts. In his scathing words he was able to condemn everything that was ignoble, selfish, and mean; and he stimulated everything that was noblest and best in the hearts of the people. He gave lessons of the loftiest patriotism and of aspirations for political freedom, while at the same time he maintained a steadfast devotion to the cause of everything that savoured of uncompromising hatred of oppression and wrong."

"Now, Robert Burns was a great man and a great poet, and the influence of his truly tremendous satiric and lyrical genius has been one of the great factors in the disintegration of Scottish superstition."

"Scottish virtues were due...to Wallace, who started the idea of independence, to John Knox for the ineradicable reverence for the Kirk, and to Robert Burns for that feeling of brotherhood and sense of humanity that got below all differences of rank."

"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 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."

"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."

"I also liked the Romantic poets. Wordsworth, Keats, Burns and Blake were some of my favourites. There was something about their rebellious spirit against the evils of industrialization that moved me. Of course now, some of their pessimism, mysticism and limited critical realist visions make me quite uncomfortable."

"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 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."

"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."

"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."

"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?"

"I was na fou, but just had plenty."

"Some wee short hours ayont the twal."

"John Barleycorn got up again, And sore surprised them all."

"The heart benevolent and kind The most resembles God."

"Affliction's sons are brothers in distress; A brother to relieve,—how exquisite the bliss!"

"Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face, Great chieftain o' the puddin'-race! Aboon them a' ye tak your place, Painch, tripe, or thairm: Weel are ye wordy o' a grace As lang's my arm."

"Gin a body meet a body Comin thro' the rye, Gin a body kiss a body, Need a body cry?"

"Ye high, exalted, virtuous dames, Tied up in godly laces, Before ye gie poor Frailty names, Suppose a change o' cases: A dear-lov'd lad, convenience snug, A treach'rous inclination— But, let me whisper i' your lug, Ye're aiblins nae temptation. Then gently scan your brother man, Still gentler sister woman; Tho' they may gang a kennin wrang, To step aside is human."

"If naebody care for me, I'll care for naebody."

"Should auld acquaintance be forgot, And never brought to min'? Should auld acquaintance be forgot, And days o' auld lang syne?"

"We twa hae run about the braes, And pu'd the gowans fine."

"For auld lang syne, my dear, For auld lang syne, We'll tak a cup o' kindness yet For auld lang syne!"

"Dweller in yon dungeon dark, Hangman of creation, mark! Who in widow weeds appears, Laden with unhonoured years, Noosing with care a bursting purse, Baited with many a deadly curse?"

"May coward shame distain his name, The wretch that dares not die!"

"A man may drink and no be drunk; A man may fight and no be slain; A man may kiss a bonnie lass, And aye be welcome back again."

"Flow gently, sweet Afton! amang thy green braes, Flow gently, I'll sing thee a song in thy praise. My Mary's asleep by thy murmuring stream, Flow gently, sweet Afton, disturb not her dream."

"To make a happy fireside clime To weans and wife,— That is the true pathos and sublime Of human life."

"This day, Time winds th' exhausted chain, To run the twelvemonth's length again."

"The voice of Nature loudly cries, And many a message from the skies, That something in us never dies."

"Ay waukin, Oh, Waukin still and weary: Sleep I can get nane, For thinking on my Dearie."

"John Anderson my jo, John, When we were first acquent, Your locks were like the raven, Your bonny brow was brent."

"Go fetch to me a pint o' wine, An' fill it in a silver tassie."

"The minister kiss'd the fiddler's wife, An' could na preach for thinkin' o't."

"It is the moon, I ken her horn, That's blinkin in the lift sae hie; She shines sae bright to wyle us hame, But by my sooth she'll wait a wee!"

"Some have meat and cannot eat, Some cannot eat that want it: But we have meat and we can eat, Sae let the Lord be thankit."

"Some hae meat and canna eat, And some wad eat that want it; But we hae meat, and we can eat, And sae the Lord be thankit.<!--"

"When Nature her great masterpiece designed, And framed her last, best work, the human mind, Her eye intent on all the wondrous plan, She formed of various stuff the various Man."

"Suspense is worse than disappointment."

"While Europe's eye is fix'd on mighty things, The fate of empires and the fall of kings; While quacks of State must each produce his plan, And even children lisp the Rights of Man; Amid this mighty fuss just let me mention, The Rights of Woman merit some attention."

"She is a winsome wee thing, She is a handsome wee thing, She is a lo'esome wee thing, This sweet wee wife o' mine."

"The golden Hours on angel wings Flew o'er me and my Dearie; For dear to me as light and life Was my sweet Highland Mary."

"But, oh! fell death's untimely frost, That nipt my flower sae early."

"There's threesome reels, there's foursome reels, There's hornpipes and strathspeys, man, But the ae best dance ere came to the Land Was, the deil's awa wi' the Exciseman."

"What can a young lassie, what shall a young lassie, What can a young lassie do wi' an auld man?"

"O whistle, an' I'll come to you, my lad: O whistle, an' I'll come to you, my lad: Tho' father and mither should baith gae mad, O whistle, and I'll come to you, my lad."

"O whistle, and I'll come to you, my lad: Tho' father and mither and a' should gae mad."

"If there's a hole in a' your coats, I rede you tent it; A chield's aman you takin' notes, And faith he'll prent it."

"O Mary, at thy window be! It is the wished, the trysted hour."