Poets and Poems

Robert Burns

It is difficult to think of another Western poet
so dear to the heart of a nation as he is to Scotland.

Robert Burns was born on 27 January 1759, the eldest of seven children of William Burnes and his wife Agnes Broun. He was educated at an inadequate single class-room school, for two years by a hired private tutor (shared with four other families) and from the age of eight at home by his self-educated father, who saw "something extraordinary" in his eldest child.

In 1766 William Burnes sold the house he had built in Alloway, Ayrshire, where Robert was born (now the Robert Burns museum) and became a tenant farmer. Hoping for better times, in 1777 he moved to another farm near Tarbolton. Here, with his brother Gilbert, Robert formed the Tarbolton Bachelors' Club, a condition of whose membership was to be associating with a female companion. (By 1785 a subsequent 'Rebel Four' gang were requiring proof of parental potency!*)

After their father's death in 1784, Robert and Gilbert moved to Mossgiel, a farm near Mauchline. It was there that Jean Armour showed an interest in him, and when she became pregnant, in March 1786 he gave her a paper attesting marriage. Her parents made clear their distaste for him as a son-in-law, and to avoid disgrace sent her to live with her uncle in Paisley. Only later, when the poet's fame was established, was he welcomed into the family. They married in 1788, and had nine children, only three of whom survived beyond infancy.

Meanwhile, thinking that Jean had acquiesced in his rejection, Robert regarded himself as free. In Tarbolton church he saw and was attracted to Mary Campbell, 'sweet, sprightly, blue-eyed' and in her early teens. It was for her that he wrote the beautiful air, 'I have heard the mavis (song thrush) singing, His love song to the morn'. Judging from a line in another of the poems he wrote for her ('Will ye go to the Indies, my Mary), it would seem he planned for her to go with him to Jamaica**.

When Mary left Ayrshire to return to her parents in Campbeltown, she was bearing his child. On a visit from there to Greenoch in October 1786, she became ill while nursing her brother who had a fever. She contracted typhus, gave birth prematurely, and within a day both she and the baby were dead.

Robert had loved Mary and his thoughts remained with her to the end of his life. But before the news of her death reached him, he learned that Jean Armour had given birth to twins, a boy and a girl. Born on the 3rd September 1786, Robert and Jean were christened two days later. It was decided that the boy would be brought up at Mossgiel, while the girl would stay with the Armours.

But life was about to change for Robert Burns. In September, with the huge success of his 'Kilmarnock' volume of published poems, almost overnight he became a name in the land. In November 1786, with encouragement that a second enlarged volume could successfully be printed in Edinburgh, he set out for the capital. In April 1787 the Edinburgh edition of his poems was published. He was treated as an equal by other literary figures and was invited to many aristocratic gatherings.

At one such he met Agnes 'Nancy' McLehose, a woman estranged from her husband who was keen to make his acquaintance. She invited him to her home, and while the limits of virtue were not exceeded she wrote*** to him that 'last night was one of the most exquisite I ever experienced.' The limits were elsewhere more easily exceeded. Jenny Crow, a domestic servant, bore him a son; and May Cameron, another servant, claimed him as the father of her child.

In the Spring of 1787, after a tour of the Scottish Borders - sightseeing, being feted, and collecting folk songs - he went back to Mossgiel. He had been away six months. Calling first with the Armours to see Jean and his baby girl, he found that Jean was more than willing to have him, even without marriage. In September he returned to Edinburgh, made a tour of the Scottish highlands with a friend, and resumed his visits to 'Clarinda'. Soon afterwards he learned that Jean, pregnant again, was being turned out of her parent's house. He arranged for friends to take her in, and later found a room for her in Mauchline. He persuaded her mother to look after her when the time came. On 13 March 1788 Jean gave birth to twins, two girls, neither of whom survived. In April 1788, she and Robert visited a justice of the peace in Mauchline and confirmed their marriage.

He had for some time been seeking a position with the Excise board, and in March 1787 began training under the Tarbolton Excise officer. He later obtained a post in Dumfries and combined this with the tenancy of Ellisland, a virgin farm on the local Dalswinton estate. But it was not until the spring of 1789 that a new farmhouse was completed and Jean and he were able to settle there. It was here in 1790 that he wrote his masterly long poem, 'Tam o' Shanter'.

Initially his excise post of gauger involved riding 200 miles a week in all kinds of weather, but he needed the £70 a year that it earned him; equipping the farmstead was absorbing his capital. (He relinquished the failing farm in November 1791 and they moved to a house in the town.)

His health was declining, but not so much yet as to prevent reqular visits to a local tavern; nor to enjoy the favours of Anna Park, a servant there, by whom he fathering a child. Jean cared for baby Elizabeth, as well as a newborn of her own, Maxwell Burns.

Surrounded by his family, Robert Burns died on the morning of 21 July 1796, aged 37; most probably from rheumatic heart disease complications, exacerbated by the sea bathing his doctor had recommended. He was buried with full civil and military honours on the same day as his son Maxwell was born.

After his death, Scotland took him to its heart as its National Poet, with his very human faults mostly forgotten. 'Burns Night' is celebrated each year at or near the date of his birth, and his poetry is widely known, loved and sung in many lands.

* Jean Armour was not Robert Burns's first venture into fatherhood. In 1785 his mother's servant Elizabeth Paton gave birth to a girl, also called Elizabeth. When the child was weaned she was brought to Mossgiel for his mother to care for.
** For many years the poet nurtured thoughts about emigrating to Jamaica. He was on the point of leaving in July 1786 when the immediate success of a volume of his poems, printed in Kilmarnock, persuaded him to delay his decision.
*** Nancy and Robert continued to exchange letters, often daily, signing themselves Clarinda and Sylvander. When they eventually parted, for what seemed certain to be the last time, he wrote for her the affectionate lyric 'Ay fond kiss, and then we sever.'

A Man's a Man for A' That

Is there for honest Poverty
That hings his head, an' a' that;
The coward slave - we pass him by,
We dare be poor for a' that!
For a' that, an' a' that.
Our toils obscure an' a' that,
The rank is but the guinea's stamp,
The Man's the gowd for a' that.

What though on hamely fare we dine,
Wear hoddin grey, an' a that;
Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine;
A Man's a Man for a' that:
For a' that, and a' that,
Their tinsel show, an' a' that;
The honest man, tho' e'er sae poor,
Is king o' men for a' that.

Ye see yon birkie ca'd a lord,
Wha struts, an' stares, an' a' that,
Tho' hundreds worship at his word,
He's but a coof for a' that.
For a' that, an' a' that,
His ribband, star, an' a' that,
The man o' independent mind,
He looks an' laughs at a' that.

A Prince can mak a belted knight,
A marquis, duke, an' a' that!
But an honest man's aboon his might –
Guid faith, he mauna fa' that!
For a' that, an' a' that,
Their dignities, an' a' that,
The pith o' Sense an' pride o' Worth
Are higher rank than a' that.

Then let us pray that come it may,
As come it will for a' that,
That Sense and Worth, o'er a' the earth
Shall bear the gree an' a' that.
For a' that, an' a' that,
It's comin yet for a' that,
That Man to Man the warld o'er
Shall brithers be for a' that.

Meaning of unusual words:
gaud = gold
hodden = coarse woollen cloth
birkie = dandy
coof = fool
ribband = ribbon
aboon = above
mauna fa' = must not claim*
pith = vital part
bear the gree = take the prize
* http://www.robertburns.org/works/glossary/616.html