Robert Burns

Robert Burns (1759–1796), popularly known as Robbie or sometimes Rabbie Burns, was a poet who wrote largely in Scots and Scottish dialect. Born in Alloway, Ayrshire, 25 January 1759, he died 37 years later in Dumfries, Dumfriesshire. He has come to be regarded as Scotland's national poet, with his birth observed worldwide on "Robbie Burns Day" and celebrated with Burns Suppers. Often sentimentalized, his life was one of contradictions. An ardent nationalist, he worked for a time as an excise collector for the British Government; a champion of freedom, he almost emigrated to Jamaica to work as the bookkeeper on a friends estate, one built on the labour of slaves.

Burns had some prominent detractors in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, scandalised by his love life, uncomfortable with his politics, and wary of his gift for self promotion.

"He is... only one of a thousand instances which incontestibly prove the inutility of genies, either to produce much happiness to the possessor, or to produce much good to society" (Elizabeth Hamilton 1801)

"Indeed, Burns was so full of his identity that it breaks forth on every page; and there is scarce an appropriate remark either in praise or blame of his own conduct but he has put it himself into verse. Alas for the tenor of these remarks! They are, indeed, his own pitiful apology for such a marred existence 76 and talents so misused and stunted; and they seem to prove for ever how small a part is played by reason in the conduct of man’s affairs.2 [Robert Louis Stevenson]

The Poems

And Man, whose heav'n-erected face

The smiles of love adorn,--

Man's inhumanity to man

Makes countless thousands mourn!

(From "Man Was Made To Mourn" Burns' dirge on the plight of the working man)

Ye high, exalted, virtuous dames,

Tied up in godly laces,

Before ye gie poor Frailty names,

Suppose a change o' cases;

A dear-lov'd lad, convenience snug,

A treach'rous inclination-

But let me whisper i' your lug,

Ye're aiblins nae temptation

(From "Address to the Unco Guid,

Or the Rigidly Righteous." A caustic attack on the judgemental attitudes of the comfortably off. "Then gently scan your brother man, Still gentler sister woman;" -Don't judge others lightly. "To step aside is human"; and while we may see a wrong, we can only guess at the reasons for it, and know nothing of what temptations were resisted. And judgements do not come well from smug and pious dames who are maybe no temptation themselves, or are better at hiding their own transgressions.)

A prince can mak a belted knight,

A marquis, duke, an' a' that;

But an honest man's abon his might,

Gude faith, he maunna fa' that!

For a' that, an' a' that,

Their dignities an' a' that;

The pith o' sense, an' pride o' worth,

Are higher rank than a' that

(From "Is There For Honest Poverty." These lines are thought to have been inspired by the trial of William Brodie, showing Burns' contempt for the judicial view that accepting a reward for turning King's evidence somehow made a burglar an honest man, while the one he gave evidence against was condemned to hang.)

My luve is like a red, red rose,

That's newly sprung in June.

My luve is like the melodie,

That's sweetly play'd in tune.

As fair art thou, my bonie lass,

So deep in luve am I,

And I will luve thee still, my dear,

Till a' the seas gang dry.

(First verse of his best known love song)