My First Introduction To Burns

The gifted one from Ayrshire more than a man of rhyme His poems and odes and verses have withstood the test of time All around this World we live in from north to southern shore The songs of Robert Burns will be sung forever more. The memories come to me of when I was a boy As we sat around an Irish travellers camp fire on an evening in July The gray haired nomadic singer 'Afton Waters' did sing In the calm gathering twilight the minstrel's voice did ring. I asked one of the travellers who wrote this marvellous song And he replied those beautiful words to all of mankind now belong From the pen of Robert Burns he was one who lived it hard He was the pride of Scotland and his Country's finest bard. My first introduction to Burns from one of the travelling clan A fiddler and a singer and a born to wander man At cross roads and at horse fairs and around the countryside The songs of the Highland Ploughboy he broadcast far and wide. The great and gifted bard from Ayrshire did not live to be old And the story of his amazing rise to fame so often has been told And the music in his verses is there for all to see And there may have been some great bards but few as great as he. My first introduction to Burns came close to fifty years ago Around a travellers camp fire when I was eight or so the sweetness in the old singers voice a memory to enjoy When he sang 'Afton Waters' on that evening in July.