"O were we young now as we ance hae been,
We should hae been galloping down on yon green,
And linking it owre the lily-white lea—
And werena my heart light I wad die."
The light heart of Burns failed him at last,—failed him because, enfeebled by disease and incapacitated from performing his excise duties, his salary, which had never exceeded seventy pounds a year, was reduced to half that beggarly sum; because he was so distressed for money that he was obliged to solicit a loan of a one-pound note from a friend: failed him, poor heart, because it was broken! He took to his bed for the last time on July 21st, 1796, and two days later, surrounded by his little family, he passed away in the thirty-eighth year of his age.
BURNS.
Facsimile of the original of his version of the Scottish song
"Here's a Health to Them that's Awa."
Such was the life of Robert Burns,—the hard, struggling, erring, suffering, manly life, of which his poetry is the imperishable record. He was what his birth, his temperament, his circumstances, his genius made him. He owed but little to books, and the books to which he owed anything were written in his mother tongue. His English reading, which was not extensive, harmed him rather than helped him. No English author taught or could teach him anything. He was not English, but Scottish,—Scottish in his nature and genius, Scottish to his heart's core,—the singer of the Scottish people, their greatest poet, and the greatest poet of his time.
