Happy Birthday Robert Burns
Born in Alloway, Scotland, on January 25, 1759, Robert Burns was the first of William and Agnes Burnes' seven children. His father, a tenant farmer, educated his children at home. Burns also attended one year of mathematics schooling and, between 1765 and 1768, he attended an "adventure" school established by his father and John Murdock. His father died in bankruptcy in 1784, and Burns and his brother Gilbert took over farm. This hard labor later contributed to the heart trouble that Burns' suffered as an adult.
At the age of fifteen, he fell in love and shortly thereafter he wrote his first poem. As a young man, Burns pursued both love and poetry with uncommon zeal. In 1785, he fathered the first of his fourteen children. His biographer, DeLancey Ferguson, had said, "it was not so much that he was conspicuously sinful as that he sinned conspicuously." Between 1784 and 1785, Burns also wrote many of the poems collected in his first book, Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect, which was printed in 1786 and paid for by subscriptions. This collection was an immediate success and Burns was celebrated throughout England and Scotland as a great "peasant-poet."
In 1788, he and his wife, Jean Armour, settled in Ellisland, where Burns was given a commission as an excise officer. He also began to assist James Johnson in collecting folk songs for an anthology entitled The Scots Musical Museum. Burns' spent the final twelve years of his life editing and imitating traditional folk songs for this volume and for Select Collection of Original Scottish Airs. These volumes were essential in preserving parts of Scotland's cultural heritage and include such well-known songs as "My Luve is Like a Red Red Rose" and "Auld Land Syne." Robert Burns died from heart disease at the age of thirty-seven. On the day of his death, Jean Armour gave birth to his last son, Maxwell.
Most of Burns' poems were written in Scots. They document and celebrate traditional Scottish culture, expressions of farm life, and class and religious distinctions. Burns wrote in a variety of forms: epistles to friends, ballads, and songs. His best-known poem is the mock-heroic Tam o' Shanter. He is also well known for the over three hundred songs he wrote which celebrate love, friendship, work, and drink with often hilarious and tender sympathy. Burns died on July 21, 1796, at the age of 37. Even today, he is often referred to as the National Bard of Scotland.
Comments
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Rabbie Burns is a unique figure in literature. I can't think of another person whose birth and works are celebrated and remembered every year by tens of thousands of people getting together to partake of "The Haggis" (and perhaps a 'wee dram') all over the world. He wrote about all sorts of apparently insignificant things such as a Louse, a Mouse, the Toothache, a Mountain Daisy, a Haggis, etc., etc. The best way to celebrate his remarkable talent is to read his works and enjoy the richness of it!
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"Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face,
Great chieftain o' the puddin' race,
Aboon them a' ye tak your place,
Painch, tripe, or thairm:
Weel are ye wordy o' a grace,
As lang's my arm."
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@John L. Kennedy Thank you for sharing. 😊
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Great message Elder Kennedy, thank you
Elder Hunter
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And again...
"When chapman billies leave the street, An' drouthy neebors neebors meet;
As market-days are wearin' late, an' folk begin to tak' the gate;
While we sit bousing at the nappy, An' gettin' fou an' unco happy,
We think na on the lang Scots miles, The mosses, waters, slaps, an' styles,
That lie between us an' our hame, Whare sits our sulky, sullen dame,
Gath'rin' her brows like gath'rin' storm, Nursin' her wrath to keep it warm."
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Thanks Elder Kennedy
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Ah, a fellow enthusiast!
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And yet again...
"Wee, sleekit, cow'rin,' tim'rous beastie,
O, what a panic's in thy breastie!
Thou need na start awa' sae hasty,
Wi' bickering brattle!
I wad be laith to rin and chase thee,
Wi' murd'ring pattle!
I'm truly sorry man's dominion
Has broken nature's social union,
An' justifies that ill opinion
Which mak's thee startle
At me, thy poor earth-born companion,
An' fellow-mortal!"
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Even more...
"Wee, modest, crimson-tippèd flow'r,
Thou's met me in an evil hour;
For I maun crush amang the stoure
Thy slender stem:
To spare thee now is past my pow'r,
Thou bonie gem.
Alas! it's no thy neibor sweet,
The bonie lark, companion meet,
Bending thee 'mang the dewy weet
Wi' spreck'd breast,
When upward-springing, blythe, to greet
The purpling east."
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