Robbie Burns - The Immortal Memory

Good evening everyone, I hope you have enjoyed your meal in celebration of this greatest of Scottish poets.

It is indeed a pleasing sight to see so many people brought together to enjoy the national dishes and celebrating the poetry of a that key part of the United Kingdom. 

Let us travel north in spirit, and back to 1759, where robbie burns was born in ayrshire, the son of a farmer. The young Burns tried, without great luck, to adopt this profession, but soon found that his lack of resources prevented him from making a success of this venture.

By the time this became clear he was, however, earning local fame as a poet, his poems and ideas inspiring people who had everyday experience of the things he wrote about.

His father was a man of strong ideas about human worth and conduct, and whilst the young Robbie received little formal education, these were ideas that strongly influenced his work.

So why is it that Robbie Burns' memory is immortal?

My introduction to the Scottish bard came at the age of fifteen, when I was studying the Steinbeck novel "Of Mice and Men".

You will of course know that this American novel is titled by a quotation from one of Burns' most famous poems, "To a Mouse".

My English teacher was a superb and thorough man. He gave us a copy of the poem so that we could see the inspiration behind this American author's work. I have the copy here: I dug it out for the occasion!

Imagine me then, at the age of fifteen, seated in a hot and dusty classroom, with the following poem in front of me.  Now, take care, everyone, for I am about to attempt a Scottish accent, which I hope will not cause too much offence!

"Wee, sleekit, cowrin', tim'rous beastie,

Oh, what a panic's in thy breastie,

Thou needna start away sa hasty,

Wi bick'ring brattle,

I wad be laith to rin and chase thee,

Wi' murdering pattle!"

I must apologise, for a sassenach such as i had to rely on dad's army's private fraser for his coaching!

So it was that at this early age I was introduced to this fine work. At first sight my classmates and I found it difficult to come to grips with: it was so different from anything we had seen before. Sure, it was in English, but what English!

It did not, however, take long for the poem's depth and charm to shine through. Burns demonstrates in this poem a great grasp for humanity and for each "fellow mortal" at large, be it mouse or man.

After all, he realised, that for all their differences, whatever one's role in life, or even what species you are, "the best laid schemes o' mice and men gang aft a-gley".

Let us look a little further into Burns' memory. Why is it, for example, that there is no corresponding English poets' night?

I suggest it is that, with the exception of Shakespeare, there are few English poets who have the universal appeal and wide breadth of Burns.

Burns covers every emotion from love to anger and from melancholy to sheer good fun.

Tennyson could express melancholy, Milton had epic power, Sasson intensity, and Swift satire, but Burns is unusual in having all those together.

Furthermore, Burns has appeal in this day because he expresses qualities that are hard to find. Let us take, for example, his powerful war ballads.

In 1916, Lieutenant-Colonel Winston Churchill, serving with the 6th Royal Scots Fusiliers on the Western Front, asked his wife to send him a volume of Burns' poetry.

"I will soothe and cheer their spirits by quotations from it", he explained, "I shall have to be careful not to drop into a mimicry of their accent!".

Anyone who has heard a recording of Churchill's French accent will realise what a dreadful prospect that would have been for the Scots troops under his command! 

No one could, however, blame him for his enthusiasm. Let us take the most famous example:

"Now's the day, and now's the hour:

See the front o' battle lour,

See approach proud Edward's power -

Chains and slaverie!

Wha will be a traitor knave?

Wha can fill a coward's grave?

Wha sae base as a slave?

Let him turn and flee!"

It goes on, and we can see here a rallying that Churchill would clearly have enjoyed.

Burns was clearly a principled and combative individual, and this too is a quality that is hard to find in public life today.

He was never a man to sacrifice his principle for the sake of expediency: all those in public life, for example, would do well to remember Burns' words:

  " O wad some Power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!"

This is, of course, symptomatic of Burns' good common sense: he had a real gift for pricking the bubbles of the pompous, and of bringing down those who, once in power, forget that they are human, like everyone else:

"O ye wha are sae guid yoursel, sae pious and sae holy, ye've nought to do but mark and tell your Neebour's fauts and folly!"

As the poet himself would say "nae man can tether time or tide." Burns himself was a man who relished life, who laughed heartily and who valued friends highly.

As such, I shall leave you to these pursuits, and offer you a toast to a truly great poet, to Scotland's best-loved son, to the human ideals that he embraced -  to the Immortal Memory of Robert Burns!

© The Copyright of all photographs and text on this site is the author's, 2001/2, who claims the sole right to be identified as the author such work.