To keep at times, frae being sour,
To see how things are shared;
How best o’chiels are whiles in want
While coofs on countless thousands rant
And ken na how to wair’t.
The immortal singer of songs, and all his descendants, received infinitely less for all the works of his genius than an ordinary gambler often gets for one sale of something that he never owned, or one purchase of something that he never bought; and it is doubtful if all the masterpieces of the world in art, in literature, and in science, ever brought as much cash to those whose great, patient brains have carefully and honestly wrought that the earth might be richer and better and brighter, as has been often “made” by one inferior speculator upon a single issue of watered stock.
Living in the midst of aristocracy and privilege and caste, Burns was a democrat that believed in the equality of man. It required no books or professors, or theories to teach him the injustice of the social conditions under which the world has ever lived. Here, as elsewhere, he looked to the heart—a teacher infinitely more honest and reliable than the brain.
If I’m design’d yon lordling’s slave,
By Nature’s law design’d;
Why was an independent wish