The Canongate Burns. Robert Burns

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СКАЧАТЬ honourable sense that the sentimental poetry of the late eighteenth century, at its best, embodies a tragically irreconcilable sense that the great Enlightenment impulse towards the recognition of all human worth will not lead to a just, fearless democratic society. In 1802, his radicalism diminished, Wordsworth wrote his To the Daisy. It is, not least in metrical form, significantly influenced by Burns’s version:

      Methinks that there abides in thee

      Some concord with humanity,

      Given to no other flower I see

      The forest through.

       To Ruin

      First printed in the Kilmarnock edition, 1786.

      All hail! inexorable lord!

      At whose destruction-breathing word,

      The mightiest empires fall!

      Thy cruel, woe-delighted train,

      5 The ministers of Grief and Pain,

      A sullen welcome, all!

      With stern-resolv’d despairing eye,

      I see each aimed dart;

      For one has cut my dearest tye,

      10 And quivers in my heart.

      Then low’ring and pouring,

      The Storm no more I dread;

      Tho’ thick’ning and black’ning

      Round my devoted head.

      15 And thou grim Pow’r, by Life abhorr’d,

      While Life a pleasure can afford,

      Oh! hear a wretch’s pray’r!

      No more I shrink appall’d, afraid;

      I court, I beg thy friendly aid,

      20 To close this scene of care!

      When shall my soul, in silent peace,

      Resign Life’s joyless day?

      My weary heart its throbbings cease,

      Cold-mould’ring in the clay?

      25 No fear more, no tear more

      To stain my lifeless face,

      Enclasped and grasped

      Within thy cold embrace!

      This was probably written in the winter of 1781–2. This melancholic work in the bob-wheel stanza of the old Scots poem The Cherry and the Slae, reveals the poet’s holistic view that a God of Nature influences both the pleasure and the woes of life from the fall of historic Empires to individual experience. It is a distinctive brush-stroke of Burns to move from universal comment to a specific incident. The hardship of eighteenth-century rural existence on a leased farm, particularly during winter periods, energises the poem. The subtext is the poet’s rejection by a lover who is believed to be Alison Begbie.

       Epistle to a Young Friend May, 1786

      First printed in the Kilmarnock edition, 1786.

      I lang hae thought, my youthfu’ friend, long have

      A Something to have sent you,

      Tho’ it should serve nae ither end no other

      Than just a kind memento;

      5 But how the subject-theme may gang, go

      Let time and chance determine;

      Perhaps it may turn out a Sang; song

      Perhaps, turn out a Sermon.

      Ye’ll try the world soon, my lad;

      10 And, ANDREW dear believe me,

      Ye’ll find mankind an unco squad, strange crowd

      And muckle they may grieve ye: much

      For care and trouble set your thought,

      Ev’n when your end’s attained;

      15 And a’ your views may come to nought,

      Where ev’ry nerve is strained.

      I’ll no say, men are villains a’:

      The real, harden’d wicked,

      Wha hae nae check but human law, who have no

      20 Are to a few restricked; restricted

      But, Och, mankind are unco weak very

      An’ little to be trusted;

      If Self the wavering balance shake,

      It’s rarely right adjusted!

      25 Yet they wha fa’ in Fortune’s strife, who fall

      Their fate we should na censure, not

      For still, th’ important end of life

      They equally may answer:

      A man may hae an honest heart, have

      30 Tho’ Poortith hourly stare him; poverty, look over him

      A man may tak a neebor’s part, neighbour’s

      Yet hae nae cash to spare him. have no

      Ay free, aff han’, your story tell, always, off hand/casual

      When wi’ a bosom crony; close friend

      35 But still keep something to yoursel

      Ye scarcely tell to ony: any

      Conceal yoursel as weel’s ye can well as

      Frae critical dissection: from

      But keek thro’ ev’ry other man look

      40 Wi’ sharpen’d, sly inspection.

      The sacred lowe o’ weel-plac’d love, flame, well-

      Luxuriantly indulge it;

      But never tempt th’ illicit rove,

      Tho’ naething should divulge it: nothing

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