The Complete Works of Robert Burns
Chapter 29 : Oppress'd with grief, oppress'd with care, A burden more than I can bear, I s

Oppress'd with grief, oppress'd with care, A burden more than I can bear, I set me down and sigh: O life! thou art a galling load, Along a rough, a weary road, To wretches such as I!

Dim-backward as I cast my view, What sick'ning scenes appear!

What sorrows yet may pierce me thro'

Too justly I may fear!

Still caring, despairing, Must be my bitter doom; My woes here shall close ne'er But with the closing tomb!

II.

Happy, ye sons of busy life, Who, equal to the bustling strife, No other view regard!

Ev'n when the wished end's deny'd, Yet while the busy means are ply'd, They bring their own reward: Whilst I, a hope-abandon'd wight, Unfitted with an aim, Meet ev'ry sad returning night And joyless morn the same; You, bustling, and justling, Forget each grief and pain; I, listless, yet restless, Find every prospect vain.

III.

How blest the solitary's lot, Who, all-forgetting, all forgot, Within his humble cell, The cavern wild with tangling roots, Sits o'er his newly-gather'd fruits, Beside his crystal well!

Or, haply, to his ev'ning thought, By unfrequented stream, The ways of men are distant brought, A faint collected dream; While praising, and raising His thoughts to heav'n on high, As wand'ring, meand'ring, He views the solemn sky.

IV.

Than I, no lonely hermit plac'd Where never human footstep trac'd, Less fit to play the part; The lucky moment to improve, And just to stop, and just to move, With self-respecting art: But, ah! those pleasures, loves, and joys, Which I too keenly taste, The solitary can despise, Can want, and yet be blest!

He needs not, he heeds not, Or human love or hate, Whilst I here, must cry here At perfidy ingrate!

V.

Oh! enviable, early days, When dancing thoughtless pleasure's maze, To care, to guilt unknown!

How ill exchang'd for riper times, To feel the follies, or the crimes, Of others, or my own!

Ye tiny elves that guiltless sport, Like linnets in the bush, Ye little know the ills ye court, When manhood is your wis.h.!.+

The losses, the crosses, That active man engage!

The fears all, the tears all, Of dim declining age!

[Ill.u.s.tration: "THE COTTER'S SAt.u.r.dAY NIGHT."]

XLIII.

THE

COTTER'S SAt.u.r.dAY NIGHT.

INSCRIBED TO ROBERT AIKEN, ESQ.

"Let not ambition mock their useful toil, Their homely joys, and destiny obscure: Nor grandeur hear, with a disdainful smile, The short and simple annals of the poor."

GRAY

[The house of William Burns was the scene of this fine, devout, and tranquil drama, and William himself was the saint, the father, and the husband, who gives life and sentiment to the whole. "Robert had frequently remarked to me," says Gilbert Burns, "that he thought there was something peculiarly venerable in the phrase, 'Let us wors.h.i.+p G.o.d!' used by a decent sober head of a family, introducing family wors.h.i.+p." To this sentiment of the author the world is indebted for the "Cotter's Sat.u.r.day Night." He owed some little, however, of the inspiration to Fergusson's "Farmer's Ingle," a poem of great merit.

The calm tone and holy composure of the Cotter's Sat.u.r.day Night have been mistaken by Hogg for want of nerve and life. "It is a dull, heavy, lifeless poem," he says, "and the only beauty it possesses, in my estimation, is, that it is a sort of family picture of the poet's family. The worst thing of all, it is not original, but is a decided imitation of Fergusson's beautiful pastoral, 'The Farmer's Ingle:' I have a perfect contempt for all plagiarisms and imitations."

Motherwell tries to qualify the censure of his brother editor, by quoting Lockhart's opinion--at once lofty and just, of this fine picture of domestic happiness and devotion.]

I.

My lov'd, my honour'd, much respected friend!

No mercenary bard his homage pays; With honest pride, I scorn each selfish end: My dearest meed, a friend's esteem and praise: To you I sing, in simple Scottish lays, The lowly train in life's sequester'd scene; The native feelings strong, the guileless ways; What Aiken in a cottage would have been; Ah! tho' his work unknown, far happier there, I ween!

II.

November chill blaws loud wi' angry sugh; The short'ning winter-day is near a close; The miry beasts retreating frae the pleugh: The black'ning trains o' craws to their repose: The toil-worn Cotter frae his labour goes, This night his weekly moil is at an end, Collects his spades, his mattocks, and his hoes, Hoping the morn in ease and rest to spend, And weary, o'er the moor, his course does homeward bend.

III.

At length his lonely cot appears in view, Beneath the shelter of an aged tree; Th' expectant wee-things, toddlin', stacher thro'

To meet their Dad, wi' flichterin' noise an' glee.

His wee bit ingle, blinkin' bonnily.

His clean hearth-stane, his thriftie Wifie's smile, The lisping infant prattling on his knee, Does a' his weary kiaugh and care beguile, An' makes him quite forget his labour and his toil.

IV.

Belyve, the elder bairns come drapping in, At service out amang the farmers roun': Some ca' the pleugh, some herd, some tentie rin A cannie errand to a neebor town: Their eldest hope, their Jenny, woman grown, In youthfu' bloom, love sparkling in her e'e, Comes hame, perhaps to shew a braw new gown, Or deposite her sair won penny-fee, To help her parents dear, if they in hards.h.i.+p be.

V.

With joy unfeign'd, brothers and sisters meet, An' each for other's welfare kindly spiers: The social hours, swift-wing'd, unnotic'd, fleet; Each tells the unco's that he sees or hears; The parents, partial, eye their hopeful years; Antic.i.p.ation forward points the view.

The Mother, wi' her needle an' her shears, Gars auld claes look amaist as weel's the new; The Father mixes a' wi' admonition due.

VI.

Their master's an' their mistress's command, The younkers a' are warned to obey; And mind their labours wi' an eydent hand, An' ne'er, tho' out of sight, to jauk or play: "And O! be sure to fear the Lord alway!

And mind your duty, duly, morn and night!

Lest in temptation's path ye gang astray, Implore His counsel and a.s.sisting might: They never sought in vain, that sought the Lord aright!"

VII.

But, hark! a rap comes gently to the door; Jenny, wha kens the meaning o' the same, Tells how a neebor lad cam o'er the moor, To do some errands, and convoy her hame.

The wily Mother sees the conscious flame Sparkle in Jenny's e'e, and flush her cheek, With heart-struck anxious care, inquires his name, While Jenny hafflins is afraid to speak; Weel pleas'd the Mother hears it's nae wild, worthless rake.

VIII.

Wi' kindly welcome, Jenny brings him ben; A strappan youth; he taks the Mother's eye; Blythe Jenny sees the visit's no ill ta'en; The Father cracks of horses, pleughs, and kye.

The youngster's artless heart o'erflows wi' joy, But blate, an laithfu', scarce can weel behave; The Mother, wi' a woman's wiles, can spy What makes the youth sae bashfu' and sae grave; Weel pleas'd to think her bairn's respected like the lave.

IX.

O happy love! Where love like this is found!

O heart-felt raptures!--bliss beyond compare!

I've paced much this weary, mortal round, And sage experience bids me this declare-- "If heaven a draught of heavenly pleasure spare, One cordial in this melancholy vale, 'Tis when a youthful, loving, modest pair, In other's arms, breathe out the tender tale, Beneath the milk-white thorn that scents the ev'ning gale."