ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT OF ROBERT BURNS’S POEM,
“BANNOCKBURN”
It is difficult to describe the emotions aroused when I read the original of that stirring battle song, the address at Bannockburn of Robert Bruce to his troops, which begins, “Scots, wha hae wi’ Wallace bled.” This manuscript the poet presented to his sister-in-law, with the inscription, “To Mrs. G. Burns, from her brother, the author.” Burns used to wander through Leglen Wood, supposed to be the haunt of Wallace, and confessed having visited it “with as much devout enthusiasm as ever a pilgrim did the shrine of Loretto.”
My collection contains poems of noble sublimity and heart-melting tenderness, such as the first poem known to have been written by Burns, and one of his most charming, entitled, “Once I Lov’d a Bonnie Lass.” There are two, however, which make a terrific appeal to me. One is the poem in which he was inspired by the American Revolutionary War, beginning:—
No Spartan tube, no Attic shell,
No lyre Eolian I awake,
’Tis Liberty’s bold note I swell,
Thy harp, Columbia, let me take.
The other is in some respects the favorite one of all lovers of Burns, the magnificent “For a’ That and a’ That.” I keep this collection and the poet’s priceless letters under lock and key in my vault in New York, lest the whole Scottish nation awaken one day, rise up, and demand them.
It is sad that Burns received very little money for his poems when he was alive. How surprised he must be, and with what irony must he observe, if his spirit walks this way, the great sums which have passed from one hand to another in the exciting exchange of his manuscripts.