Robert Burns: How To Know Him Part 3

Her face is fair, her heart is true, As spotless as she's bonnie, O: The opening gowan, wat wi' dew, [daisy, wet]

Nae purer is than Nannie, O.

A country lad is my degree, An' few there be that ken me, O; But what care I how few they be, I'm welcome aye to Nannie, O.

My riches a's my penny-fee, [wages]

An' I maun guide it cannie, O; [carefully]

But warl's gear ne'er troubles me, [lucre]

My thoughts are a'--my Nannie, O.

Our auld guidman delights to view His sheep an' kye thrive bonnie, O. [cows]

But I'm as blythe that hauds his pleugh, [holds]

An' has nae care but Nannie, O.

Come weel, come woe, I care na by, [reck not]

I'll tak what Heav'n will send me, O; Nae ither care in life have I, But live, an' love my Nannie, O.

THE RIGS O' BARLEY

It was upon a Lammas night, When corn rigs are bonnie, [ridges]

Beneath the moon's unclouded light I held awa to Annie: [took my way]

The time flew by wi' tentless heed, [careless]

Till, 'tween the late and early, Wi' sma' persuasion she agreed To see me thro' the barley.

The sky was blue, the wind was still, The moon was s.h.i.+ning clearly; I set her down wi' right good will Amang the rigs o' barley; I kent her heart was a' my ain; [knew, own]

I loved her most sincerely; I kissed her owre and owre again [over]

Amang the rigs o' barley.

I locked her in my fond embrace; Her heart was beating rarely; My blessings on that happy place, Amang the rigs o' barley!

But by the moon and stars so bright, That shone that hour so clearly, She aye shall bless that happy night Amang the rigs o' barley.

I hae been blythe wi' comrades dear; I hae been merry drinking; I hae been joyfu' gatherin' gear; [property]

I hae been happy thinking: But a' the pleasures e'er I saw, Tho' three times doubled fairly, That happy night was worth them a', Amang the rigs o' barley.

Corn rigs, an' barley rigs, An' corn rigs are bonnie: I'll ne'er forget that happy night, Amang the rigs wi' Annie.

2. Mossgiel

On the death of their father, Robert and Gilbert Burns moved with the family to the farm of Mossgiel in the next parish of Mauchline. By putting in a claim for arrears of wages, they succeeded in drawing enough from the wreck of their father's estate to supply a scanty stock for the new venture. The records of the first summer show the poet in anything but a happy frame of mind. His health was miserable; and the loosening of his moral principles, which he ascribes to the influence of a young sailor he had met at Irvine, bore fruit in the birth to him of an illegitimate daughter by a servant girl, Elizabeth Paton. The verses which carry allusion to this affair are illuminating for his character. One group is devout and repentant; the other marked sometimes by cynical bravado, sometimes by a note of exultation. Both may be regarded as genuine enough expressions of moods which alternated throughout his life, and which corresponded to conflicting sides of his nature. Here is a typical example of the former:

A PRAYER IN THE PROSPECT OF DEATH

O Thou unknown Almighty Cause Of all my hope and fear!

In whose dread presence ere an hour, Perhaps I must appear!

If I have wander'd in those paths Of life I ought to shun; As something, loudly in my breast, Remonstrates I have done;

Thou know'st that Thou hast formed me With pa.s.sions wild and strong; And list'ning to their witching voice Has often led me wrong.

Where human weakness has come short, Or frailty stept aside, Do thou, All-Good! for such Thou art, In shades of darkness hide.

Where with intention I have err'd, No other plea I have, But thou art good; and Goodness still Delighteth to forgive.

In his _Epistle to John Rankine_, with a somewhat hard and heartless humor, he braves out the affair; in the following _Welcome_ he treats it with a tender pride, as sincere as his remorse:

THE POET'S WELCOME TO HIS LOVE-BEGOTTEN DAUGHTER

Thou's welcome, wean! Mishanter fa' me, [child! Misfortune befall]

If ought of thee, or of thy mammy, Shall ever daunton me, or awe me, My sweet wee lady, Or if I blush when thou shalt ca' me t.i.t-ta or daddy.

What tho' they ca' me fornicator, An' tease my name in kintra clatter: [country gossip]

The mair they talk I'm kent the better, [more]

E'en let them clash; [tattle]

An auld wife's tongue's a f.e.c.kless matter [feeble]

To gie ane fash. [give one annoyance]

Welcome, my bonnie, sweet wee dochter-- Tho' ye come here a wee unsought for, An' tho' your comin' I hae fought for Baith kirk an' queir; [choir]

Yet, by my faith, ye're no unwrought for!

That I shall swear!

Sweet fruit o' mony a merry dint, My funny toil is no a' tint, [not all lost]

Tho' thou came to the warl' asklent, [askew]

Which fools may scoff at; In my last plack thy part's be in't-- [a small coin]

The better half o't.

Tho' I should be the waur bested, [worse off]

Thou's be as braw an' bienly clad, [finely, comfortably]

An' thy young years as nicely bred Wi' education, As ony brat o' wedlock's bed In a' thy station.

Wee image of my bonnie Betty, As fatherly I kiss and daut thee, [pet]

As dear an' near my heart I set thee Wi' as guid will, As a' the priests had seen me get thee That's out o' h.e.l.l.

Gude grant that thou may aye inherit [G.o.d]

Thy mither's looks and gracefu' merit, An' thy poor worthless daddy's spirit, Without his failins; 'Twill please me mair to see thee heir it, Than stockit mailins. [farms]

An' if thou be what I wad hae thee, [would have]

An' tak the counsel I shall gie thee, I'll never rue my trouble wi' thee-- The cost nor shame o't-- But be a loving father to thee, And brag the name o't.

At Mossgiel the Burns family was no more successful than in either of its previous farms. Bad seed and bad weather gave two poor harvests, and by the summer of 1786 the poet's financial condition was again approaching desperation. His situation was made still more embarra.s.sing by the consequences of another of his amours. Shortly after moving to the parish of Mauchline he had fallen in love with Jean Armour, the daughter of a mason in the village. What was for Burns a prolonged courts.h.i.+p ensued, and in the spring of 1786 he learned that Jean's condition was such that he gave her a paper acknowledging her as his wife. To his surprise and mortification the girl's father, who is said to have had a personal dislike to him and who well may have thought a man with his reputation and prospects was no promising son-in-law, opposed the marriage, forced Jean to give up the paper, and sent her off to another town. Burns chose to regard Jean's submission to her father as inexcusable faithlessness, and proceeded to indulge in the ecstatic misery of the lover betrayed.

There is no doubt that he suffered keenly from the affair: he writes to his friends that he could "have no nearer idea of the place of eternal punishment" than what he had felt in his "own breast on her account. I have tried often to forget her: I have run into all kinds of dissipation and riot ... to drive her out of my head, but all in vain." This is in a later letter than that in which he has "sunk into a lurid calm," and "subsided into the time-settled sorrow of the sable widower."

Yet other evidence shows that at this crisis also Burns's emotional experience was far from simple. It was probably during the summer of the same year that there occurred the pa.s.sages with the mysterious Highland Mary, a girl whose ident.i.ty, after voluminous controversy, remains vague, but who inspired some of his loftiest love poetry.

Though Burns's feeling for her seems to have been a kind of interlude in reaction from the "cruelty" of Jean, he idealized it beyond his wont, and the subject of it has been exalted to the place among his heroines which is surely due to the long-suffering woman who became his wife.

In this same summer Burns formed the project of emigrating. He proposed to go to the West Indies, and return for Jean when he had made provision to support her. This offer was refused by James Armour, but Burns persevered with the plan, obtained a position in Jamaica, and in the autumn engaged pa.s.sage in a s.h.i.+p sailing from Greenock. The song, _Will Ye Go to the Indies; My Mary_, seems to imply that Highland Mary was invited to accompany him, but substantial evidence of this, as of most things concerning his relations with Mary Campbell, is lacking. _From Thee, Eliza, I Must Go_, supposed to be addressed to Elizabeth Miller, also belongs to this summer, and is taken to refer to another of the "under-plots in his drama of love."