The Real Robert Burns Part 8

In 1795, the year before his death, he wrote three poems favourable to the election of Mr Heron, the Whig candidate. In the first poem he said:

The independent commoner Shall be the man for a' that.

Mrs Riddell, writing of Burns after his death, said: 'His features were stamped with the hardy character of independence.'

He was a democrat whose democracy was based on the rock of independence and a character that 'preserved the dignity of man with soul erect.'

Burns saw both sides of the ideal of freedom. He hated tyrants, and he despised those who tamely submitted to tyranny. The inscription on the Altar to Independence, erected by Mr Heron at Kerroughtree, written by Burns, reads:

Thou of an independent mind, With soul resolv'd, with soul resign'd; Prepar'd Power's proudest frown to brave, Who wilt not be, nor have a slave; Virtue alone who dost revere, Thy own reproach alone dost fear-- Approach this shrine, and worship here.

The man of whom Burns approved was 'one who wilt not _be_ nor _have_ a slave.'

In 'Lines Inscribed in a Lady's Pocket Almanac' he says:

Deal Freedom's sacred treasures free as air, Till Slave and Despot be but things that were.

In the 'Lines on the Commemoration of Rodney's Victory' he wrote:

Be Anarchy cursed, and be Tyranny d.a.m.ned; condemned And who would to Liberty e'er be disloyal May his son be a hangman--and he his first trial.

Burns was a philosopher whose mind had been trained to look at both sides of a question, and estimate truly their relationships to each other. Even in one of his beautiful poems to his wife, written after he was married, 'I Hae a Wife o' My Ain,' he wrote:

I am naebody's lord, I'll be slave to naebody.

While Burns was an intense lover of freedom, he had no sympathy with those who would overturn const.i.tuted authority. He wished to achieve the freedom of the people, but to achieve it by const.i.tutional means. He was a national volunteer in Dumfries, and he composed a fine patriotic song for the corps to sing. He revealed his balanced mind in the following lines in that song:

The wretch that would a tyrant own, And the wretch, his true-born brother, Who would set the mob aboon the throne, above May they be d.a.m.ned together.

Burns had as little respect for a king who was a tyrant, as he had for a tyrant in any other situation in life; but he clearly saw the wicked folly of allowing mob-rule to be subst.i.tuted for const.i.tutional authority.

In the Prologue written to be spoken by an actor on his benefit night, Burns wrote:

No hundred-headed Riot here we meet With decency and law beneath his feet; Nor Insolence a.s.sumes fair Freedom's name.

Here, again, he records the dominant ideal of his mind through life; but at the same time he utters a warning against ignorant and wild theorists, who, in their madness, would overthrow civilisation.

He overflows again on his favourite theme in the 'Lines on the Commemoration of Rodney's Victory,' when he was proposing toasts:

The next in succession I'll give you's the King!

Whoe'er would betray him, on high may he swing!

And here's the grand fabric, the free Const.i.tution, As built on the base of our great Revolution.

The love of liberty grew stronger in his heart and in his mind as he grew older. In his songs, and in his letters, he frequently moralised on independence of character and the value of liberty. In a letter to the _Morning Chronicle_ he said, 1795: 'I am a Briton, and must be interested in the cause of liberty.'

To Patrick Miller he sent a copy of his poems in 1793, accompanied by a letter expressing grat.i.tude for his kindness and appreciation of him 'as a patriot who in a venal, sliding age stands forth the champion of the liberties of my country.'

In his love-song, 'Their Groves o' Sweet Myrtle,' he compares the boasted glories of tropical lands with the beauty of his beloved Scotland, and boasts in pride of the charms of the

Lone glen o' green breckan, ferns Wi' the burn stealing under the lang yellow broom,

and of the sweetness of

Yon humble broom bowers, Where the blue-bell and gowan lurk, lowly, unseen.

He cannot close the song, however, without claiming that beautiful as are the 'sweet-scented woodlands' of these foreign countries, they are, after all, 'the haunt of the tyrant and slave,' and that

The slave's spicy forests, and gold-bubbling fountains, The brave Caledonian views wi' disdain; He wanders as free as the winds of his mountains.

Burns celebrated the success of the French Revolution in a poem ent.i.tled 'The Tree of Liberty.' His heart bled for the peasantry of France, whom the aristocrats had treated so contemptuously, and with such lack of consideration, and cruelty. He rejoiced in the overthrow of their oppressors, and the establishment of a republican form of government. In this poem he gives credit to Lafayette, the great Frenchman who had gone to a.s.sist the people of the United States in their brave struggle to get free. He asks blessings on the head of the n.o.ble man, Lafayette, in the verse:

My blessings aye attend the chiel Wha pitied Gallia's slaves, man, And staw a branch, spite o' the deil, stole Frae yont the western waves, man.

Fair Virtue watered it wi' care, And now she sees wi' pride, man, How weel it buds and blossoms there, Its branches spreading wide, man.

A wicked crew syne, on a time, Did tak a solemn aith, man, oath It ne'er should flourish to its prime, I wat they pledged their faith, man.

Awa they gaed, wi' mock parade, Like beagles hunting game, man, But soon grew weary o' the trade, And wished they'd stayed at hame, man.

Fair Freedom, standing by the tree, Her sons did loudly ca', man; She sang a song o' liberty, Ma.r.s.eillaise Which pleased them ane and a', man.

By her inspired, the new-born race Soon drew the avenging steel, man; The hirelings ran--her friends gied chase And banged the despot weel, man.

Wi' plenty o' sic trees, I trow, The warld would live at peace, man; The sword would help to mak' a plough; The din o' war wad cease, man.

The greatest poem Burns wrote to rejoice at the victorious progress of humanity towards freedom was his 'Ode to Liberty,' written to express his supreme gratification at the success of the people of the United States in their struggle for independence from England. He wrote it, as he wrote most of his poems during his life in Dumfries, in the moonlight in Lincluden Abbey ruins, on the Nith River, just outside of Dumfries. He introduces the ode in a poem named 'A Vision.'

He tells that, at midnight, while in the ruins, he saw in the roofless tower of the abbey, a vision:

By heedless chance I turned my eyes, And, by the moonbeam, shook to see A stern and stalwart ghaist arise, ghost Attired as minstrels wont to be.

Had I a statue been o' stane, His daring look had daunted me; And on his bonnet graved was plain, The sacred posy, 'Libertie.'

And frae his harp sic strains did flow Might rouse the slumbering dead to hear; But oh! it was a tale of woe, As ever met a Briton's ear!

The ghost tells the story of the tyranny England exercised over the people of the United States, and of the breaking of the tyrant's chains. Burns had no more respect for despotism by an English king than he had for the despotism of a tyrant in any other land. He knew the people of the American colonies were right. England's greatest statesman, Pitt, had said so, when the colonists, driven to desperation, rebelled; so the ghost's revelation should be to a liberty-loving Briton's ear 'a tale of woe.'

The ode begins:

No Spartan tube, no Attic sh.e.l.l, No lyre aeolian I awake; 'Tis liberty's bold note I swell; Thy harp, Columbia, let me take!

See gathering thousands, while I sing, A broken chain exultant bring, And dash it in the tyrant's face, And dare him to his very beard, And tell him he no more is feared-- No more the despot of Columbia's race!

A tyrant's proudest insults braved, They shout--a People freed! They hail an Empire saved.

But come, ye sons of Liberty, Columbia's offspring, brave and free.

In danger's hour still flaming in the van, Ye know and dare maintain 'the Royalty of Man.'