The Complete Works of Robert Burns
Chapter 174 : _August._ Misgivings in the hour of _despondency_ and prospect of death:-- Why am I lo

_August._

Misgivings in the hour of _despondency_ and prospect of death:--

Why am I loth to leave this earthly scene.[152]

EGOTISMS FROM MY OWN SENSATIONS.

_May._

I don't well know what is the reason of it, but somehow or other, though I am when I have a mind pretty generally beloved, yet I never could get the art of commanding respect.--I imagine it is owing to my being deficient in what Sterne calls "that understrapping virtue of discretion."--I am so apt to a _lapsus linguae_, that I sometimes think the character of a certain great man I have read of somewhere is very much _apropos_ to myself--that he was a compound of great talents and great folly.--N.B. To try if I can discover the causes of this wretched infirmity, and, if possible, to mend it.

_August._

However I am pleased with the works of our Scotch poets, particularly the excellent Ramsay, and the still more excellent Fergusson, yet I am hurt to see other places of Scotland, their towns, rivers, woods, haughs, &c., immortalized in such celebrated performances, while my dear native country, the ancient bailieries of Carrick, Kyle, and Cunningham, famous both in ancient and modern times for a gallant and warlike race of inhabitants; a country where civil, and particularly religious liberty have ever found their first support, and their last asylum; a country, the birth-place of many famous philosophers, soldiers, statesman, and the scene of many important events recorded in Scottish history, particularly a great many of the actions of the glorious WALLACE, the SAVIOUR of his country; yet, we have never had one Scotch poet of any eminence, to make the fertile banks of Irvine, the romantic woodlands and sequestered scenes on Ayr, and the healthy mountainous source and winding sweep of DOON, emulate Tay, Forth, Ettrick, Tweed, &c. This is a complaint I would gladly remedy, but, alas! I am far unequal to the task, both in native genius and education. Obscure I am, and obscure I must be, though no young poet, nor young soldier's heart, ever beat more fondly for fame than mine--

"And if there is no other scene of being Where my insatiate wish may have its fill,-- This something at my heart that heaves for room, My best, my dearest part, was made in vain."

_September._

There is a great irregularity in the old Scotch songs, a redundancy of syllables with respect to that exactness of accent and measure that the English poetry requires, but which glides in, most melodiously, with the respective tunes to which they are set. For instance, the fine old song of "The Mill, Mill, O,"[153] to give it a plain prosaic reading, it halts prodigiously out of measure; on the other hand, the song set to the same tune in Bremner's collection of Scotch songs, which begins "To f.a.n.n.y fair could I impart," &c., it is most exact measure, and yet, let them both be sung before a real critic, one above the biases of prejudice, but a thorough judge of nature,--how flat and spiritless will the last appear, how trite, and lamely methodical, compared with the wild warbling cadence, the heart-moving melody of the first!--This is particularly the case with all those airs which end with a hypermetrical syllable. There is a degree of wild irregularity in many of the compositions and fragments which are daily sung to them by my compeers, the common people--a certain happy arrangement of old Scotch syllables, and yet, very frequently, nothing, not even like rhyme or sameness of jingle, at the ends of the lines. This has made me sometimes imagine that perhaps it might be possible for a Scotch poet, with a nice judicious ear, to set compositions to many of our most favourite airs, particularly that cla.s.s of them mentioned above, independent of rhyme altogether.

There is a n.o.ble sublimity, a heart-melting tenderness, in some of our ancient ballads, which show them to be the work of a masterly hand: and it has often given me many a heart-ache to reflect that such glorious old bards--bards who very probably owed all their talents to native genius, yet have described the exploits of heroes, the pangs of disappointment, and the meltings of love, with such fine strokes of nature--that their very names (O how mortifying to a bard's vanity!) are now "buried among the wreck of things which were."

O ye ill.u.s.trious names unknown! who could feel so strongly and describe so well: the last, the meanest of the muses' train--one who, though far inferior to your flights, yet eyes your path, and with trembling wing would sometimes soar after you--a poor rustic bard unknown, pays this sympathetic pang to your memory! Some of you tell us, with all the charms of verse, that you have been unfortunate in the world--unfortunate in love: he, too, has felt the loss of his little fortune, the loss of friends, and, worse than all, the loss of the woman he adored. Like you, all his consolation was his muse: she taught him in rustic measures to complain. Happy could he have done it with your strength of imagination and flow of verse! May the turf lie lightly on your bones! and may you now enjoy that solace and rest which this world rarely gives to the heart tuned to all the feelings of poesy and love!

_September._

The following fragment is done something in imitation of the manner of a n.o.ble old Scottish piece, called M'Millan's Peggy, and sings to the tune of Galla Water.--My Montgomery's Peggy was my deity for six or eight months. She had been bred (though, as the world says, without any just pretence for it) in a style of life rather elegant; but, as Vanbrugh says in one of his comedies, my "d----d star found me out"

there too: for though I began the affair merely in a _gaitie de coeur_, or, to tell the truth, which will scarcely be believed, a vanity of showing my parts in courts.h.i.+p, particularly my abilities at a _billet-doux_, which I always piqued myself upon, made me lay siege to her; and when, as I always do in my foolish gallantries, I had fettered myself into a very warm affection for her, she told me one day, in a flag of truce, that her fortress had been for some time before the rightful property of another; but, with the greatest friends.h.i.+p and politeness, she offered me every allegiance except actual possession. I found out afterwards that what she told me of a pre-engagement was really true; but it cost me some heart-aches to get rid of the affair.

I have even tried to imitate in this extempore thing that irregularity in the rhymes, which, when judiciously done, has such a fine effect on the ear.

"Altho' my bed were in yon muir."[154]

_September._

There is another fragment in imitation of an old Scotch song, well known among the country ingle-sides.--I cannot tell the name, neither of the song nor the tune, but they are in fine unison with one another.--By the way, these old Scottish airs are so n.o.bly sentimental, that when one would compose to them, to "south the tune,"

as our Scotch phrase is, over and over, is the readiest way to catch the inspiration, and raise the bard into that glorious enthusiasm so strongly characteristic of our old Scotch poetry. I shall here set down one verse of the piece mentioned above, both to mark the song and tune I mean, and likewise as a debt I owe to the author, as the repeating of that verse has lighted up my flame a thousand times:--

When clouds in skies do come together To hide the brightness of the sun, There will surely be some pleasant weather When a' their storms are past and gone.[155]

Though fickle fortune has deceived me, She promis'd fair and perform'd but ill; Of mistress, friends, and wealth bereav'd me, Yet I bear a heart shall support me still.

I'll act with prudence as far as I'm able, But if success I must never find, Then come misfortune, I bid thee welcome, I'll meet thee with an undaunted mind.

The above was an extempore, under the pressure of a heavy train of misfortunes, which, indeed, threatened to undo me altogether. It was just at the close of that dreadful period mentioned already, and though the weather has brightened up a little with me, yet there has always been since a tempest brewing round me in the grim sky of futurity, which I pretty plainly see will some time or other, perhaps ere long, overwhelm me, and drive me into some doleful dell, to pine in solitary, squalid wretchedness.--However, as I hope my poor country muse, who, all rustic, awkward, and unpolished as she is, has more charms for me than any other of the pleasures of life beside--as I hope she will not then desert me, I may even then learn to be, if not happy, at least easy, and south a sang to soothe my misery.

'Twas at the same time I set about composing an air in the old Scotch style.--I am not musical scholar enough to p.r.i.c.k down my tune properly, so it can never see the light, and perhaps 'tis no great matter; but the following were the verses I composed to suit it:--

O raging fortune's withering blast Has laid my leaf full low, O![156]

The tune consisted of three parts, so that the above verses just went through the whole air.

_October_, 1785.

If ever any young man, in the vestibule of the world, chance to throw his eye over these pages, let him pay a warm attention to the following observations, as I a.s.sure him they are the fruit of a poor devil's dear-bought experience.--I have literally, like that great poet and great gallant, and by consequence, that great fool, Solomon, "turned my eyes to behold madness and folly." Nay, I have, with all the ardour of a lively, fanciful, and whimsical imagination, accompanied with a warm, feeling, poetic heart, shaken hands with their intoxicating friends.h.i.+p.

In the first place, let my pupil, as he tenders his own peace, keep up a regular, warm intercourse with the Deity. * * * *

This is all worth quoting in my MSS., and more than all.

R. B.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 145: See Songs and Ballads, No. I.]

[Footnote 146: See Winter. A Dirge. Poem I.]

[Footnote 147: Song XIV.]

[Footnote 148: Poem IX.]

[Footnote 149: Song V]

[Footnote 150: Song XVII.]

[Footnote 151: Poem X.]

[Footnote 152: Poem XI.]

[Footnote 153: "The Mill, Mill, O," is by Allan Ramsay.]