IMMORTAL MEMORYBURNS NIGHTSARRIA BURNS SOCIETY - BARCELONA
Wherever dwells a Scot in the world In the short span of time since our dear kind hosts invited me to speak in homage to the Immortal Memory of Robert Burns born in Alloway some 253 years ago, the eldest son of William and Agnes, and whose life has been celebrated every night of the date of his birth, 25th of January 1759, since, one Hugh Morris, one evening in December 1825 at Montgomery’s Inn in Dalry, Ayrshire, suggested that a Burns Club be formed and the Innkeeper later hosted the first Burn’s supper on 25th January 1826, I have been priveleged to have read through the complete works of this Immortal Poet, to have been amazed to find that his Immortal Memory on the Internet reveals more search results, no less than 732,000, in his name than any other of the giants of world literature – the Bard south of the border reveals little more than 625,000, that the Sarria Burns Society is one of over 700 Burns Clubs and Societies around the world, and to have been alarmed to learn that it is not infrequent for Immortal Memory speakers, generously and deliciously fed and wined as we have been tonight, to speak well into the wee and not so wee hours of the following morning, quite cheerfully doing so, as long as the golden liquid keeps flowing. So it was with relief when our good host told me, though at this stage he may believe I have forgotten his words, ‘Remember! Make it short!’ Robert Burns was a man of the soil, worked on the land on his father’s farm as a boy and young man. On the point of emigrating to the West Indies, his poems were published at the age of 26 so he was able to afford moving instead to Edinburgh where he was paid exceptional tribute by society and the literati as the ‘heaven-taught ploughman poet’. And Burns returned the tribute: EDINA! Scotia’s darling seat!… Edina! …I shelter in thy honour’d shade. We should remember that Edinburgh in the late 18th and early 19th centuries had become, as Smollett said, “the hotbed of genius” in Europe first under the leadership of David Hume, philosopher, humanitarian, and historian who died as Burns was born, Adam Smith, contemporary of Burns and author of The Wealth of Nations, William Robertson principal of Edinburgh University, and other illustrious names. Later Robert Burns returned to farming this time in Dumfriesshire but failed to scratch a living out of it and took up work as an Excise Officer. He died at the age of 36 leaving a wife Jean Armour and 11 or 12 children and an Immortal Memory for the world to celebrate as we do here tonight. His background was a harsh one. Robert Louis Stevenson writes: “I think we can conceive of him, in the early years, in that rough moorland country, poor among the poor with his seven pounds a year, looked upon with doubt by his elders, but for all that the best talker, the best letter-writer, the most famous lover and confidant, the laureate poet…..; among the youth he walked an apparent god. His fame soon spread…..” He was soon “ identified with the opposition party – a clique of roaring lawyers and half-heretical divines, with wit enough to appreciate the value of the poet’s help and not sufficient taste to moderate his…personality”. Burns wrote in the language of the people, albeit in Broad Scots, who could understand what he wrote and identify with what he expressed in verse, and that is surely why he is held immortal around the world. What finer words before a meal than the grace pronounced before we set too tonight, what food has been so immortalized as the Haggis; we enjoy his verse;,and surely we shall at the end of this night sing of friendship in Burns own immortal song Auld Lang Syne. But let’s hear from Robert Burns himself, first why he wrote. Some rhyme a neebor’s name to lash, The most famous lover? “The sweetest hours that e’er I spend “As fair art thou, my bonie lass, Till a’ the seas gang dry, my Dear, Immortal charm indeed! And yet when the natural consequences of his early relationship with Jean Armour became manifest, hear what he had to say “ Against two things”, he wrote, “I am fixed as fate –staying at home and owning her conjugally. The first by heaven I will not do – tha last, by hell, I will never do!”. And yet the same Burns later wrote in an epistle to his friend Doctor Blacklock: To make a happy fire-side clime Immortal wish that comes down the years for such one young couple in our party tonight shortly to embark on their adventure together. And in fact to make a happy fire-side was just what he tried to do when he finally was able to marry Jean Armour who bore him twins in September 1786. Despite his love for the lassies he never showed the ruthlessness of Don Juan. To the contrary listen to him as he bids them farewell: “And fare-thee-weel, my only Lueve! He immortalized his lassies leaving their names to posterity in his verse, Lovely Polly Stewart, Thou Fair Eliza, Bonny Peggy Alison, Highland Mary, the Lass of Cessnock Banks. He paid lasting tribute them all: And pleaded for them too: While Europe´s eye is fixed on mighty things Lest anyone be alarmed at what he was getting - equal rights, Burns must be quoted as qualifying this plea: But truce with kings and truce with constitutions He spoke for the outcasts of society who together with Burns friends made loose in Poosie Nansie’s especially he spoke out for for the “sodgers” neglected as they were in those days on their return from war, and caused scandal by his tribute to their not so legal efforts to overcome their hardships in his Cantata,. The Jolly Beggars ending with: A fig for those by law protected! As for the sodger Burns does not let us forget: For gold the merchant ploughs the main, “Freedom and Whisky gang thegither: and to take some interest in politics he passionately defended Scotland: In a postscript to The Authors Earnets Cry and Prayer written to the Right Honourable and Honourable Scotch Representatives in the House of Commons he prays: “Arouse my boys! Exert your mettle, To get auld Scotland back her kettle.. Even in his cry Scots Wha Hae he called: “Liberty’s in every blow! Truly an immortal challenge the world over- Do or Die, whether it be at Murrayfield or Muntanya! Sadly in later years as an Excise Officer in Dumfries he felt he had taken a downward turn in life but he seemed always to relieve himself in verse and bounce back at critics:
“Ye men of wit and wealth, why all this sneering But Burns was able to make Immortal verse from the simplest of his experiences as a farmer and ploughman. Can anyone over 250 years ago ever imagined that his words To a Mouse on turning her up in her nest with the plough in November 1785 would be so Immortal as to be repeated daily by a Scottish professor, Tim Sutherland, to his only friend a mouse throughout his six years (1983-1989) as a hostage in solitary confinement in Lebanon. Imagine Tim Sutherland as he recited the last few lines to his friend: But Mousie, thou art no thy lane, Still thou art blest, compar’d wi’ me! This Scottish professor preserved his sanity during those long years in great part thanks to reciting Robert Burns immortal poems. Burns could turn the torment of acute physical pain into a frenzy of writing and no doubt in this way he rid himself of his Immortal Toothache with the curse: Gie all the faes o’SCOTLAND’S weal One could say so much more but I shall attempt to close, thus will only briefly refer to three more immortal memories left to us by Burns: As the virtual editor of the Scots Musical Museum orinted and sold by his friend James Johnson, five volumes of Scottish songs that Burns himself helped Johnson collect, write and edit, including aound 180 written by Burn. Shortly before his death and before the fifth volume was ready, Burns wrote to Johnson: “I will venture to prophesy, that to future ages your publication will be the textbook and standard of Scottish Song and Music”. And so it is. Worth noting too that Beethoven, contemporary of Burns composed music to many of them. If that were not enough in addition to his massive ouput of poems, how about the rarely commented The Merry Muses, Robert Burns collection of bawdy songs. It was illegal to publish this in the USA and Great Britain until the mid 1960s. While making this collection, he said to a friend: “There must be some truth in original sin.. – My violent propensity to write Bawdy convinces me of it!”. I shall refrain from quoting from The Merry Muses on this dignified occasion. But he appealed for people to be accepted as they are in an epitaph which may well have been written as his own: “Then gently scan your brother man, Finally to the immortal golden liquid, how could Burns treat his “hero bold” John Barleycorn with such ferocious violence? Clearly it was because Burns himself year in year out: Had “ploughed him down, put clods upon his head”, had seen each Spring John Barleycorn “come up again”, come Autumn had him cut down, tied him up and “cudgeled him”, had heaved John Barleycorn “..into a darksome pit with water to the brim Only then to be laid upon the floor and still, as signs of lifeappeared, worse was to follow “o’er scorching flame”, but worst of allthe miller then “crushed John barleycorn between two stones”. But all this is done to John Barleycorn, Robert Burns’ “hero bold”, for good cause: And John Barleycorn has Burns’s Immortal Reward. So let me finish echoing Burns’ immortal call which, taking some poetic licence, let us give to Burns himself as well: “Then let us toast John Barleycorn” and Robert Burns
Sarria Burns Society, Barcelona, 25th January 2002 |