This was an eventful and productive year for Burns. Quickly following each other came ‘The Twa Dogs,’ ‘The Author’s Earnest Cry and Prayer,’ ‘The Ordination,’ ‘Epistle to James Smith,’ ‘The Vision,’ ‘Address to the Unco Guid,’ ‘The Holy Fair,’ ‘To a Mountain Daisy,’ ‘To Ruin,’ ‘Despondency: an Ode,’ ‘Epistle to a Young Friend,’ ‘Nature’s Law,’ ‘The Brigs of Ayr,’ ‘O Thou Dread Power!’ ‘Farewell Song to the Banks of Ayr,’ ‘Lines on Meeting Lord Daer,’ ‘Masonic Song,’ ‘Tam Samson’s Elegy,’ ‘A Winter Night,’ ‘Yon Wild Mossy Mountains,’ ‘Address to Edinburgh,’ and ‘Address to a Haggis,’ with love-songs and many minor pieces.
Burns had given Jean Armour a certificate of marriage, and he nearly lost his mental balance when, at her father’s order, she consented to have it burned. Fortunately for him two things aided in preserving his balance: the publication of the Kilmarnock edition of his poems, and his love for Mary Campbell, ‘Highland Mary.’ No man ever needed a love, deep and true, to save him more than Burns did. He believed Jean was lost to him for ever. He was not a faithless but a needy lover when he found a responsive heart in Highland Mary. They made their marriage vows on the Fail, Sunday, 14th May 1786. Mary went home to prepare for marriage, but caught a fever and died. Burns went to Edinburgh later in the year to publish a second edition of his poems, as the first edition had been so well received. In Edinburgh he was the hero of the highest and most thoroughly educated classes. He wrote several fine poems to Mary Campbell.
28 Years Old.
Three thousand copies of his poems were published in April in Edinburgh, netting him over five hundred pounds. He made two triumphal tours—the Border Tour and the Highland Tour. As Mary Campbell was dead, his love was kindled by Clarinda, Mrs M’Lehose, with whom he conducted an intensive love correspondence, and to whom he wrote several beautiful love-songs. As she was a married woman who was separated from her husband, Burns could not marry her. In this year he wrote the ‘Inscription for the Headstone of Fergusson,’ ‘Epistle to Mrs Scott,’ ‘The Bonnie Moor Hen,’ ‘On the Death of John M’Leod,’ ‘Elegy on the Death of James Hunter Blair,’ ‘The Humble Petition of Bruar Water,’ ‘Lines on the Fall of Fyers,’ ‘Castle Gordon,’ ‘On Scaring Some Waterfowl,’ ‘A Rosebud by My Early Walk,’ ‘The Banks of Devon,’ ‘The Young Highland Rover,’ ‘Birthday Ode,’ and many short pieces and love-songs, among them ‘The Birks of Aberfeldy.’
29 Years Old.
Rented Ellisland farm, on the Nith, near Dumfries. Married Jean Armour (second marriage to her) in April, and left her in Mauchline till he could build a home for her on Ellisland, which was ready in December. Building his new home, stocking and managing the farm, and riding fifty miles occasionally to his Jean, made his year so busy that he wrote little poetry, but exquisite love-songs. The estate of Glenriddell, owned in the time of Burns by Robert Riddell, bordered on Ellisland farm. Robert Riddell was a fine type of Scottish gentleman, and Burns and he became warm friends. Among the best poems of this year, not love-songs, are ‘Verses written in Friar’s Carse Hermitage,’ ‘Epistle to Robert Graham of Fintry,’ ‘The Day Returns,’ ‘A Mother’s Lament,’ ‘The Fall of the Leaf,’ ‘Auld Lang Syne,’ ‘The Poet’s Progress,’ ‘Elegy on the Year 1788,’ and ‘Epistle to James Tennant.’
30 Years Old.
Wrote many love-songs for Johnson’s Scots Musical Museum, though busily engaged in farming, and, in addition, a new Psalm for the Chapel of Kilmarnock; a sketch in verse to Right Hon. C. J. Fox, ‘The Wounded Hare,’ ‘The Banks of Nith,’ ‘John Anderson my Joe,’ ‘The Kirk of Scotland’s Alarm,’ ‘Caledonia,’ ‘The Battle of Sherramuir,’ ‘The Braes o’ Killiecrankie,’ ‘Farewell to the Highlands,’ ‘To Mary in Heaven,’ ‘Epistle to Dr Blacklock,’ and ‘New Year’s Day, 1790.’
31 Years Old.