Homecoming Scotland 2009 - Robert Burns

Scotland's Bard - Robert Burns

Robert Burns is recognised the world over as Scotland’s national bard. As such, his life and works play a central role in Homecoming Scotland 2009, which marks the 250th anniversary of his birth.

But who was this man who died young and in poverty in a small provincial town, who was almost instantly mourned by an entire nation and who is still revered to this day?

Burns’ father, William Burnes or Burness, was a tenant farmer at Clochnahill, near Stonehaven in the north-east of Scotland - Burns in the Mearns. Employed as an estate gardener (Father of the Bard), he later left the area to seek better prospects for his growing family in Ayrshire, Scotland.

LXI.--To His BROTHER, MR. GILBERT BURNS, MOSSGIEL.
EDINBERG, 17_th September_ 1787.

My Dear Sir,

I arrived here safe yesterday evening after a tour of twenty-two days, and travelling near six hundred miles, windings included. My farthest stretch was about ten miles beyond Inverness. I went through the heart of the Highlands by Crieff, Taymouth, the famous seat of Lord Breadalbane, down the Tay, among cascades and druidical circles of stones, to Dunkeld, a seat of the Duke of Athole; thence across Tay, and up one of his tributary streams to Blair of Athole, another of the duke's seats, where I had the honour of spending nearly two days with his grace and family; thence many miles through a wild country among cliffs grey with eternal snows, and gloomy savage glens, till I crossed Spey and went down the stream through Strathspey, so famous in Scottish music; Badenoch, etc., till I reached Grant Castle, where I spent half a day with Sir James Grant and family; and then crossed the country for Fort George, but called by the way at Cawdor, the ancient seat of Macbeth; there I saw the identical bed in which tradition says king Duncan was murdered: lastly, from Fort George to Inverness.

I returned by the coast through Nairn, Forres, and so on, to Aberdeen, thence to Stonehive, where James Burness, from Montrose, met me by appointment. I spent two days among our relations, and found our aunts, Jean and Isabel, still alive, and hale old women. John Cairn, though born the same year with our father, walks as vigorously as I can: they have had several letters from his son in New York. William Brand is likewise a stout old fellow; but further particulars I delay till I see you, which will be in two or three weeks.

The rest of my stages are not worth rehearsing; warm as I was for Ossian's country, where I had seen his very grave, what cared I for fishing-towns or fertile carses? I slept at the famous Brodie of Brodie's one night, and dined at Gordon Castle next day, with the Duke, Duchess, and family. I am thinking to cause my old mare to meet me, by means of John Ronald, at Glasgow; but you shall hear farther from me before I leave Edinburgh. My duty and many compliments from the north to my mother; and my brotherly compliments to the rest. I have been trying for a berth for William [1] but am not likely to be successful. Farewell. R. B.

And so it was that Robert Burns was born near Ayr on January 25, 1759.

His father, though always extremely poor, attempted to give his children a fair education. Robert, who was the eldest, went to school for three years in a neighbouring village, and later, for shorter periods, to three other schools in the vicinity.

Theniel Menzies' Bonie Mary

Air-"The Ruffian's Rant," or "Roy's Wife."

In comin by the brig o' Dye,
At Darlet we a blink did tarry;
As day was dawnin in the sky,
We drank a health to bonie Mary.

Chorus.-Theniel Menzies' bonie Mary,
Theniel Menzies' bonie Mary,
Charlie Grigor tint his plaidie,
Kissin' Theniel's bonie Mary.

Her een sae bright, her brow sae white,
Her haffet locks as brown's a berry;
And aye they dimpl't wi' a smile,
The rosy cheeks o' bonie Mary.
Theniel Menzies' bonie Mary, &c.

We lap a' danc'd the lee-lang day,
Till piper lads were wae and weary;
But Charlie gat the spring to pay
For kissin Theniel's bonie Mary.
Theniel Menzies' bonie Mary, &c.

But it was to his father and to his own reading that he owed the more important part of his education, and by the time that he had reached manhood he had a good knowledge of English, a reading knowledge of French, and a fairly wide acquaintance with the masterpieces of English literature from the time of Shakespeare to his own day.

In 1771 the family move to Lochlea, and Burns went to the neighbouring town of Irvine to learn flax-dressing. The only result of this experiment, however, was the formation of an acquaintance with a dissipated sailor, whom he afterward blamed as the prompter of his first licentious adventures.

He had meantime formed an irregular intimacy with Jean Armour, for which he was censured by the Kirk-session.

As a result of his farming misfortunes, and the attempts of his father-in-law to overthrow his irregular marriage with Jean, he resolved to emigrate, and in order to raise money for the passage he published Kilmarnock (1786) a volume of the poems which he had been composing from time to time for some years.

This volume was unexpectedly successful, so that, instead of sailing for the West Indies, he went up to Edinburgh, and during that winter he was the chief literary celebrity of the season.

An enlarged edition of his poems was published there in 1787, and the money derived from this enabled him to aid his brother in Mossgiel, and to take and stock for himself the farm of Ellisland in Dumfriesshire.

Continued ill-success, however, led him, in 1791, to abandon Ellisland, and he moved to Dumfries, where he had obtained a position in the Excise.

But he was now thoroughly discouraged; his work was mere drudgery; his tendency to take his relaxation in debauchery increased the weakness of a constitution early undermined; and he died at Dumfries on July 26, 1796, in his thirty-eighth year.

The fact is that Burns had lived in near poverty most of his life. He had been engaged in heavy physical farm work since he was a young boy, in a harsh climate and on a very limited diet. It had taken its toll.

He had succumbed to a form of rheumatic fever, which would have been easily treatable today, on the same day that his wife gave birth to their ninth child – a son, Maxwell.

Burns was buried with full military honours as a member of the local volunteer militia, the Fencibles. Burns had joined up the year before as Britain was at war with France and there was a fear of invasion.

In his short life, Burns had written a host of poems and songs that would become cherished throughout the world.

Epigram On Parting With A Kind Host In The Highlands

When Death's dark stream I ferry o'er,
A time that surely shall come,
In Heav'n itself I'll ask no more,
Than just a Highland welcome.

His words would reach far beyond his native Scotland and continue to resonate over two centuries later – words about the human spirit and condition, about nature, love, life and death that are as meaningful now as they were in Burns' time.

His greatest works gave a unique and vivid insight into the aspirations and anguishes of the brotherhood of man and his words maintain their powerful meaning today.

Auld Lang Syne, Tam o' Shanter, Ae Fond Kiss, My Love is Like a Red Red Rose, Scots Wha Hae, A Man's a Man for A' That – the list goes on and on.

Sadly, as is so often the case, Burns' genius was only widely recognised after his death.