Читать книгу The Essential Works of Robert G. Ingersoll - Robert Green Ingersoll - Страница 147

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He was the poet of the home—of father, mother, child—of the purest wedded love.

In the "Cotter's Saturday Night," one of the noblest and sweetest poems in the literature of the world, is a description of the poor cotter going from his labor to his home:

"At length his lonely cot appears in view,

Beneath the shelter of an aged tree;

Th' expectant wee-things, toddlin', stacher through

To meet their Dad, wi' flichterin' noise and glee.

His wee bit ingle, blinkin' bonnilie,

His clean hearth-stane, his thrifty wifie's smile,

The lisping infant prattling on his knee,

Does a' his weary carking cares beguile,

And makes him quite forget his labour an' his toil."

And in the same poem, after having described the courtship, Burns bursts into this perfect flower:

"O happy love! where love like this is found!

O heart-felt raptures! bliss beyond compare!

I've pacèd much this weary, mortal round,

And sage experience bids me this declare:

If Heaven a draught of heavenly pleasure spare

One cordial in this melancholy vale,

'Tis when a youthful, loving, modest pair,

In other's arms, breathe out the tender tale

Beneath the milk-white thorn that scents the ev'ning gale."

Is there in the world a more beautiful—a more touching picture than the old couple sitting by the ingleside with clasped hands, and the pure, patient, loving old wife saying to the white-haired man who won her heart when the world was young:

"John Anderson, my jo, John,

When we were first acquent;

Your locks were like the raven,

Your bonnie brow was brent;

But now your brow is beld, John,

Your locks are like the snaw;

But blessings on your frosty pow,

John Anderson, my jo.

"John Anderson, my jo, John,

We clamb the hill thegither;

And monie a canty day, John,

We've had wi' ane anither;

Now we maun totter down, John,

But hand in hand we'll go,

And sleep thegither at the foot,

John Anderson, my jo."

Burns taught that the love of wife and children was the highest—that to toil for them was the noblest.

"The sacred lowe o' weel placed love,

Luxuriantly indulge it;

But never tempt the illicit rove,

Though naething should divulge it."

"I waine the quantum of the sin,

The hazzard o'concealing;

But och! it hardens all within,

And petrifies the feeling."

"To make a happy fireside clime

To weans and wife,

That's the true pathos, and sublime,

Of human life."