"Of a' the airts* the wind can blaw,
I dearly like the wet,
For there the bonnie lassie lives,
The lassie I lo'e best:
The wild-woods grow and rivers row,**
And mony a hill between;
But day and night my fancy's flight
Is ever wi' my Jean.
"I see her in the dewy flowers,
I see her sweet and fair:
I hear her in the tunefu' birds,
I hear her charm the air;
There's not a bonnie flower that springs
By fountain, shaw,*** or green,
There's not a bonnie bird that sings
But minds me o' my Jean."
*Directions.
**Roll.
***Wood.
But farming and song-making did not seem to go together, and on his new farm Burns succeeded little better than on any that he had tried before. He thought to add to his livelihood by turning an excise man, that is, an officer whose work is to put down smuggling, to collect the duty on whisky, and to see that none upon which duty has not been paid is sold. One of his fine Edinburgh friends got an appointment for him, and he began his duties, and it would seem fulfilled them well. But this mode of life was for Burns a failure. In discharge of his duties he had to ride hundreds of miles in all kinds of weathers. He became worn out by the fatigue of it, and it brought him into the temptation of drinking too much. Things went with him from bad to worse, and at length he died at the age of thirty-six, worn out by toil and sin and suffering.
In many ways his was a misspent life "at once unfinished and a ruin."* His was the poet's soul bound in the body of clay. He was an unhappy man, and we cannot but pity him, and yet remember him with gratitude for the beautiful songs he gave us. In his own words we may say—
*Carlyle.
"Is there a man, whose judgment clear,
Can others teach the course to steer,
Yet runs, himself, life's mad career,
Wild as the wave?
Here pause—and, through the starting tear,
Survey this grave."
Burns was a true son of the soil. There is no art in his songs but only nature. Apart form his melody what strikes us most is his truth; he sang of what he saw, of what he felt and knew. He knew the Scottish peasant through and through. Grave and humorous, simple and cunning, honest and hypocritical, proud and independent—every phase of him is to be found in Burns's poems. He knew love too; and in every phase—happy and unhappy, worthy and unworthy—he sings of it. But it is of love in truth that he sings. Here we have no more the make-believe of the Elizabethan age, no longer the stilted measure of the Georgian. The day of the heroic couplet is done; with Burns we come back to nature.
BOOK TO READ
Selected Works of Robert Burns, edited by R. Sutherland. (This is probably the best selection for juvenile readers.)