Burns

MY OWN WILD BURNS! these rude-wrought rhymes of thine In golden worth are like the unshapely coin Of some new realm, yet pure as from the mine— And Art may well be spared with such alloy As dims the bullion to improve the die! I love the truths of Art but more indeed The simplest truths of Nature; and I read To find her visibly enthroned on all His muse hath builded like a fiery wall Round national faith and patriotic pride And Love and Valour both at Beauty’s side. Yea, more his outward rudeness, doth impress Upon me still his innate strengthiness 1 Even as imperfect features oft enhance Th’ intrinsic power of some fine countenance. How various too the spirit of his lyre— How many-hued his soul’s poetic fire! In his one Muse such qualities we find Mingled, as most are several in their kind: Mirth like a billow brightening up before The blasts of Grief—to die on Misery’s shore, Humour and Scorn and Pathos, with a reach Above all effort, each exalting each! Yea, Terror wedding its own sense of evil To mother Pity—even for the Devil! But best he moves to tears, or wakes such sighs As fan the vital fire in Beauty’s lustrous eyes. Hark! when the winding Nith, the Afton, Clyde, Rave downward or in gleaming quiet glide, How Passion’s very soul keeps burning by In his wild verse from every covert nigh! Or by the “bonnie Doon” or “gurgling Ayr,” What heart-sweet memories like perfumes there Re-breathe of bloomy joys untimely shed And Love that followed the belov’ed dead To Heaven!—and then while Pity weeps aloud Clad in the pale ideal of a shroud, Who would exchange the luxury of her woe For all the pleasures that the heartless know! . . . . . But should we need relief—another page Shall blow the trumpet of his warlike rage! And vilest of the villain herd is he Who to his battle-dirge can listener be Nor feel that he could die for Liberty! Or who, while volleys forth the charging lay Revoicing Bannockburn’s all-glorious day, From his exalted manhood then not spurns Whate’er is traitorous, with a shout for Burns! And now in thought I track with steps of fear The noble peasant in his wild career. The haven of his youth is left: the sea Of Life is loudening all around; and she, Who ’mid its perilous breakers might have stood His first sweet love—she is not! Heaven looks bright Still, and the hills laugh round him for delight, But, ah! beneath the sun he finds no more The Eden where his genius dwelt before! And does he wander by his native Ayr? The spirit of gladness hath gone up even there— Up like the blithe notes of the lark when they Have faded heavenward utterly away. The more he mixes with his kind in mirth The more he feels the homelessness of earth, Till Life’s lost charm seems beckoning him afar In the white beauty of each lovely star! She is not!—only sweeter is the tone Of his wild lyre for the wild loss thus known. But storying thus with love his native streams, Thus by the life of his poetic dreams Breathing suggestions that exalt and thrill Into the spirit of each warrior hill; Yea lighting Scotia’s universal face With mental beauty and affectionate grace, Yet, did he die the victim of excess? Alas! even Poesy by her mute distress Admits the blot, nor could she save her son, Her star-bright Rob, her love-anointed one! Whilst yet the bard by Fortune unsubdued Had only like a wild bird of the wood Sung his own simple joys, then happy being good— Ere he had sounded the world’s heart and spurned The soulless tone its hollowness returned, His habitudes how temperate we find From a self-pleasing tunefulness of mind. But afterwards, that such a being so Alive to joy and sensitive to woe, With all in sympathy of rich and rare Flushing his soul, as in the evening air A western cloud grows grateful to the sense With all the sun’s unspeakable affluence Of golden glory—mightily endowed By genius too, with motives nobly proud And full-summ’d wings of spiritual flame Wherewith to mount against the burning eye of Fame; Yet “bounded in a nutshell,” or but wooed By Fortune from a barren solitude, Just to be stared at by her minions vain— A sort of mental monster newly ta’en! That such a being should resort at length To whatsoever might repair the strength Of ruined Joy a moment or inspire The heart of dying Hope though with fallacious fire, Was I believe, howe’er the truth appal, Almost inevitably natural. Ah, Scotia! it behoved thee then to guard The worldly welfare of thy peasant bard! But no, thou wouldst not—and thy gifted son So placed, again the like career should run— Again be naked left to Fortune’s slurs, A hound-like spirit in a land of curs! But ah! if such may always be the fate Of Genius native to a low estate, For mercy’s sake, nay for the sake of Burns, Whose spirit methinks tow’rds each poor brother yearns, Away the mask of kindred let us fling At once, and brand it as an outcast thing! Above communion with the rude, by mind Exalted, and yet shunned by the refined! Yea, let this warning in its face be hurl’d As the collective verdict of the world:— “Enrich the age with beauty if you will, But you must do so at your peril still! The sole reward’s a life-long lack of bread, And lastly a most desolate death-bed, And then some century after, when the loss And agony of Genius on the cross Of Passion, shall have spread into a tale Wherewith to spice the tavern lounger’s ale, Then shall your lowly grave, long grass o’ergrown, Become a national sentiment in stone! Yes, then a costly monument shall grace And guard it in the land, a sacred place!” Oh, must not Scorn have reeled with laughter—yes, Even until shocked at her own bitterness, To see by Scotland such a work up-piled In honour of its so neglected child Of grace and glory beautifully wild? But there it stands—a type (at least to me) Of intellectual hypocrisy! Sad Poesy beholding, from it turns And murmurs—What, a monument to Burns? No: ’tis a sordid scoff perpetual made— A final insult to his injured Shade! The thankless country that denied him bread, Now gives this stone—for he is safely dead!