Читать книгу Robert Burns: How To Know Him - William Allan Neilson - Страница 5

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My lov'd, my honour'd, much respected friend!

No mercenary bard his homage pays:

With honest pride I scorn each selfish end,

My dearest meed a friend's esteem and praise:

To you I sing, in simple Scottish lays,

The lowly train in life's sequester'd scene;

The native feelings strong, the guileless ways;

What Aiken in a cottage would have been—

Ah! tho' his worth unknown, far happier there, I ween.

November chill blaws load wi' angry sough; wail

The shortening winter-day is near a close;

The miry beasts retreating frae the pleugh;

The black'ning trains o' craws to their repose:

The toil-worn Cotter frae his labour goes,

This night his weekly moil is at an end,

Collects his spades, his mattocks, and his hoes,

Hoping the morn in ease and rest to spend,

And weary, o'er the moor, his course does hameward bend.

At length his lonely cot appears in view,

Beneath the shelter of an aged tree;

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

To meet their dad, wi' flichterin' noise an' glee. fluttering

His wee bit ingle, blinkin bonnilie, fire

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

The lisping infant prattling on his knee,

Does a' his weary kiaugh and care beguile, worry

An' makes him quite forget his labour an' his toil.

Belyve, the elder bairns come drapping in, Soon

At service out, amang the farmers roun';

Some ca' the pleugh, some herd, some tentie rin drive, heedful run

A cannie errand to a neibor town: quiet

Their eldest hope, their Jenny, woman-grown,

In youthfu' bloom, love sparkling in her e'e, eye

Comes hame, perhaps to shew a braw new gown, fine

Or deposite her sair-won penny-fee, hard-won wages

To help her parents dear, if they in hardship be.

With joy unfeign'd brothers and sisters meet,

An' each for other's weelfare kindly spiers: asks

The social hours, swift-wing'd, unnoticed fleet;

Each tells the uncos that he sees or hears; wonders

The parents, partial, eye their hopeful years;

Anticipation forward points the view.

The mother, wi' her needle an' her sheers,

Gars auld claes look amaist as weel's the new; Makes old clothes

The father mixes a' wi' admonition due.

Their master's an' their mistress's command

The younkers a' are warnèd to obey; youngsters

An' mind their labours wi' an eydent hand, diligent

An' ne'er, tho' out o' sight, to jauk or play: trifle

‘And O! be sure to fear the Lord alway,

An' mind your duty, duly, morn an' night!

Lest in temptation's path ye gang astray, go

Implore His counsel and assisting might:

They never sought in vain that sought the Lord aright!’

But hark! a rap comes gently to the door;

Jenny, wha kens the meaning o' the same, knows

Tells how a neibor lad cam o'er the moor,

To do some errands, and convoy her hame.

The wily mother sees the conscious flame

Sparkle in Jenny's e'e, and flush her cheek;

Wi' heart-struck anxious care, inquires his name,

While Jenny hafflins is afraid to speak; half

Weel pleased the mother hears it's nae wild worthless rake.

Wi' kindly welcome, Jenny brings him ben; in

A strappin' youth; he takes the mother's eye;

Blythe Jenny sees the visit's no ill ta'en;

The father cracks of horses, pleughs, and kye. chats, cows

The youngster's artless heart o'erflows wi' joy,

But blate and laithfu', scarce can weel behave; shy, bashful

The mother, wi' a woman's wiles, can spy

What makes the youth sae bashfu' an' sae grave;

Weel-pleased to think her bairn's respected like the lave. child, rest

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 evening gale.’

Is there, in human form, that bears a heart—

A wretch, a villain, lost to love and truth—

That can, with studied, sly, ensnaring art,

Betray sweet Jenny's unsuspecting youth?

Curse on his perjur'd arts, dissembling, smooth!

Are honour, virtue, conscience, all exil'd?

Is there no pity, no relenting ruth,

Points to the parents fondling o'er their child?

Then paints the ruin'd maid, and their distraction wild?

But now the supper crowns their simple board,

The halesome parritch, chief of Scotia's food: wholesome

The sowpe their only hawkie does afford, milk, cow

That 'yont the hallan snugly chows her cood; beyond, partition, cud

The dame brings forth in complimental mood,

To grace the lad, her weel-hain'd kebbuck, fell; well-saved cheese, strong

And aft he's prest, and aft he ca's it good;

The frugal wifie, garrulous, will tell

How 'twas a towmond auld sin' lint was i' the bell. twelve-month, flax, flower

The cheerfu' supper done, wi' serious face

They round the ingle form a circle wide;

The sire turns o'er, wi' patriarchal grace,

The big ha'-bible, ance his father's pride: family-Bible

His bonnet rev'rently is laid aside,

His lyart haffets wearing thin an' bare; gray hair on temples

Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide—

He wales a portion with judicious care, chooses

And ‘Let us worship God!’ he says with solemn air.

They chant their artless notes in simple guise;

They tune their hearts, by far the noblest aim;

Perhaps Dundee's wild warbling measures rise,

Or plaintive Martyrs, worthy of the name;

Or noble Elgin beets the heav'nward flame, fans

The sweetest far of Scotia's holy lays:

Compared with these, Italian trills are tame;

The tickled ears no heartfelt raptures raise;

Nae unison hae they with our Creator's praise. No, have

The priest-like father reads the sacred page,

How Abram was the friend of God on high;

Or Moses bade eternal warfare wage

With Amalek's ungracious progeny;

Or how the royal bard did groaning lie

Beneath the stroke of Heaven's avenging ire;

Or Job's pathetic plaint, and wailing cry;

Or rapt Isaiah's wild seraphic fire;

Or other holy seers that tune the sacred lyre.

Perhaps the Christian volume is the theme,

How guiltless blood for guilty man was shed;

How He who bore in Heaven the second name

Had not on earth whereon to lay His head;

How His first followers and servants sped;

The precepts sage they wrote to many a land:

How he, who lone in Patmos banishèd,

Saw in the sun a mighty angel stand,

And heard great Bab'lon's doom pronounced by Heaven's command.

Then kneeling down to Heaven's Eternal King

The saint, the father, and the husband prays:

Hope ‘springs exulting on triumphant wing’

That thus they all shall meet in future days:

There ever bask in uncreated rays,

No more to sigh, or shed the bitter tear,

Together hymning their Creator's praise,

In such society, yet still more dear;

While circling Time moves round in an eternal sphere.

Compared with this, how poor Religion's pride,

In all the pomp of method and of art,

When men display to congregations wide

Devotion's every grace, except the heart!

The Power, incensed, the pageant will desert,

The pompous strain, the sacerdotal stole;

But haply, in some cottage far apart,

May hear, well pleased, the language of the soul;

And in His Book of Life the inmates poor enrol.

Then homeward all take off their several way;

The youngling cottagers retire to rest:

The parent-pair their secret homage pay,

And proffer up to Heav'n the warm request,

That He who stills the raven's clamorous nest,

And decks the lily fair in flowery pride,

Would, in the way His wisdom sees the best,

For them and for their little ones provide;

But chiefly in their hearts with grace divine preside.

From scenes like these old Scotia's grandeur springs,

That makes her loved at home, revered abroad:

Princes and lords are but the breath of kings,

‘An honest man's the noblest work of God;’

And certes, in fair Virtue's heavenly road,

The cottage leaves the palace far behind;

What is a lordling's pomp? a cumbrous load,

Disguising oft the wretch of human kind,

Studied in arts of hell, in wickedness refin'd!

O Scotia! my dear, my native soil!

For whom my warmest wish to Heaven is sent!

Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil

Be blest with health, and peace, and sweet content!

And O may Heaven their simple lives prevent

From luxury's contagion, weak and vile;

Then, howe'er crowns and coronets be rent,

A virtuous populace may rise the while,

And stand a wall of fire around their much-loved isle.

O Thou! who poured the patriotic tide

That streamed thro' Wallace's undaunted heart,

Who dared to nobly stem tyrannic pride,

Or nobly die—the second glorious part,

(The patriot's God, peculiarly thou art,

His friend, inspirer, guardian, and reward!)

O never, never, Scotia's realm desert;

But still the patriot, and the patriot-bard,

In bright succession raise, her ornament and guard!

No less impressive than that of his father is the intellectual hunger of the future poet himself. We have had Gilbert's testimony to the eagerness with which he devoured such books as came within his reach, and the use he made of his later fragments of schooling points the same way. He had a quarter at the parish school of Dalrymple when he was thirteen; and in the following summer he attended the school at Ayr under his former Alloway instructor. Murdoch's own account of these three weeks gives an idea of Burns's quickness of apprehension; and the style of it is worth noting with reference to the characteristics of the poet's own prose.

“In 1773,” says Murdoch, “Robert Burns came to board and lodge with me, for the purpose of revising English grammar, etc., that he might be better qualified to instruct his brothers and sisters at home. He was now with me day and night, in school, at all meals, and in all my walks. At the end of one week, I told him as he was now pretty much master of the parts of speech, etc., I should like to teach him something of French pronunciation, that when he should meet with the name of a French town, ship, officer, or the like, in the newspapers, he might be able to pronounce it something like a French word. Robert was glad to hear this proposal, and immediately we attacked the French with great courage.

“Now there was little else to be heard but the declension of nouns, the conjugation of verbs, etc. When walking together, and even at meals, I was constantly telling him the names of different objects, as they presented themselves, in French; so that he was hourly laying in a stock of words, and sometimes little phrases. In short, he took such pleasure in learning, and I in teaching, that it was difficult to say which of the two was most zealous in the business; and about the end of the second week of our study of the French, we began to read a little of the Adventures of Telemachus in Fénelon's own words.

“But now the plains of Mount Oliphant began to whiten, and Robert was summoned to relinquish the pleasing scenes that surrounded the grotto of Calypso, and armed with a sickle, to seek glory by signalising himself in the fields of Ceres; and so he did, for although but about fifteen, I was told that he performed the work of a man.”

The record of Burns's school-days is completed by the mention of a sojourn, probably in the summer of 1775, in his mother's parish of Kirkoswald. Hither he went to study mathematics and surveying under a teacher of local note, and, in spite of the convivial attractions of a smuggling village, seems to have made progress in his geometry till his head was turned by a girl who lived next door to the school.

So far the education gained by Burns from his schoolmasters and his father had been almost exclusively moral and intellectual. It was in less formal ways that his imagination was fed. From his mother he had heard from infancy the ballads, legends, and songs that were traditionary among the peasantry; and the influence of these was re-enforced by a certain Betty Davidson, an unfortunate relative of his mother's to whom the family gave shelter for a time.

“In my infant and boyish days, too,” he writes in the letter to Doctor Moore already quoted, “I owed much to an old maid of my mother's, remarkable for her ignorance, credulity, and superstition. She had, I suppose, the largest collection in the country, of tales and songs concerning devils, ghosts, fairies, brownies, witches, warlocks, spunkies, kelpies, elf-candles, dead-lights, wraiths, apparitions, cantraips, enchanted towers, giants, dragons, and other trumpery. This cultivated the latent seeds of Poesy; but had so strong an effect on my imagination, that to this hour, in my nocturnal rambles, I sometimes keep a sharp look-out in suspicious places; and though nobody can be more sceptical in these matters than I, yet it often takes an effort of philosophy to shake off these idle terrors.”

His private reading also contained much that must have stimulated his imagination and broadened his interests. It began with a Life of Hannibal, and Hamilton's modernized version of the History of Sir William Wallace, which last, he says, with the touch of flamboyancy that often recurs in his style, “poured a Scottish prejudice in my veins, which will boil along there till the flood-gates of life shut in eternal rest.” By the time he was eighteen he had, in addition to books already mentioned, become acquainted with Shakespeare, Pope (including the translation of Homer), Thomson, Shenstone, Allan Ramsay, and a Select Collection of Songs, Scotch and English; with the Spectator, the Pantheon, Locke's Essay on the Human Understanding, Sterne, and Henry Mackenzie. To these must be added some books on farming and gardening, a good deal of theology, and, of course, the Bible.

The pursuing of intellectual interests such as are implied in this list is the more significant when we remember that it was carried on in the scanty leisure of a life of labor so severe that it all but broke the poet's health, and probably left permanent marks on his physique. Yet he had energy left for still other avocations. It was when he was no more than fifteen that he first experienced the twin passions that came to dominate his life, love and song. The girl who was the occasion was his partner in the harvest field, Nelly Kilpatrick; the song he addressed to her is the following: