In his ‘Epistle to Davie—A Brother Poet’ Burns, after detailing the many hardships and sorrows of the poor, forgets the hardships, and recalls his blessings:
There’s a’ the pleasures o’ the heart,
The lover and the frien’;
Ye hae your Meg, your dearest part,
And I my darling Jean.
It warms me, it charms me,
To mention but her name;
It heats me, it beets me, kindles
And sets me a’ on flame.
O all ye powers who rule above!
O Thou whose very self art love!
Thou know’st my words sincere!
The life-blood streaming through my heart,
Or my more dear immortal part
Is not more fondly dear!
When heart-corroding care and grief
Deprive my soul of rest,
Her dear idea brings relief
And solace to my breast.
Thou Being, All-Seeing,
O hear my fervent prayer;
Still take her, and make her
Thy most peculiar care.
Three years after the death of Highland Mary, Burns remained out in the stackyard on Ellisland farm and composed ‘To Mary in Heaven.’ Nothing could more strikingly prove the sincerity, the permanence, the purity, and the sacredness of the white-souled love of Burns than this poem:
Thou ling’ring star, with less’ning ray,
That lov’st to greet the early morn,
Again thou usher’st in the day
My Mary from my soul was torn.
O Mary! dear departed shade!
Where is thy place of blissful rest?
See’st thou thy lover lowly laid?
Hear’st thou the groans that rend his breast?
That sacred hour can I forget?
Can I forget that hallow’d grove
Where, by the winding Ayr, we met
To live one day of parting love?
Eternity can not efface
Those records dear of transports past;
Thy image at our last embrace;
Ah! little thought we ’twas our last!
Ayr, gurgling, kiss’d his pebbled shore,
O’erhung with wild-woods, thickening green;
The fragrant birch and hawthorn hoar
Twined amorous round the raptured scene:
The flowers sprang wanton to be prest,
The birds sang love on every spray;
Till too, too soon, the glowing west,
Proclaimed the speed of wingèd day.
Still o’er these scenes my mem’ry wakes,
And fondly broods with miser-care;
Time but th’ impression stronger makes,
As streams their channels deeper wear.
My Mary, dear departed shade!
Where is thy place of blissful rest?
See’st thou thy lover lowly laid?
Hear’st thou the groans that rend his breast?
The general themes of this sacred poem, written three years after Mary Campbell’s death, are the preponderating themes of his love-songs. No love-songs ever written have so little of even embracing and kissing as the love-songs of Burns, except the sonnets of Mrs Browning.
It is worthy of note that Mary Campbell was not a beauty—her attractions were kindness, honesty, and unselfishness; yet, though happily married himself, he loved her, three years after her death, as profoundly as when they parted on the Fail, more than three years before he wrote the poem.