Robert Burns: Poems Selected by Don Paterson

by Robert Burns, Don Paterson

Robert Burns (1759-96) was born into a farming family in Ayrshire, Scotland. The publication in 1786 of his first book, Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish dialect, made him famous overnight, and saw him feted by Edinburgh society. But Burns made no money from his writing and quickly fell on hard times, returning to farming in Dumfries and, when that failed, to work as an excise officer. He devoted his final years to poetry and the writing of Scottish songs.

Genres: Poetry

Paperback

Published January 1, 2005

About the author

Robert Burns (also known as Robin) was a Scottish poet and a lyricist. He is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland, and is celebrated worldwide. He is the best known of the poets who have written in the Scots language. He also wrote in English and a "light" Scots, accessible to an audience beyond Scotland.

He is regarded as a pioneer of the Romantic movement and after his death became a great source of inspiration to the founders of both liberalism and socialism. A cultural icon in Scotland and among the Scottish Diaspora around the world, celebration of his life and work became almost a national charismatic cult during the 19th and 20th centuries, and his influence has long been strong on Scottish literature.

As well as making original compositions, Burns collected folk songs from across Scotland, often revising or adapting them. His Auld Lang Syne is often sung at Hogmanay (the last day of the year), and Scots Wha Hae has served as an unofficial national anthem. Other poems and songs of Burns that remain well-known across the world today, include A Red, Red Rose, A Man's A Man for A' That, To a Louse, To a Mouse, The Battle of Sherramuir, Tam o' Shanter and Ae Fond Kiss.

Reviews

[Elizabeth Grant]

What is your favourite Robert Burns poem? I’m having a hard time making up my mind. And then again, why should I?

But I’ve loved “Death and Dr Hornbook” ever since the wonderful Kenneth Simpson read it to us in his Scot. lit. class at Strathclyde so many years ago. The story which, the narrator claims, “is just as true’s the Deil’s in hell or Dublin city”, revolves around an encounter he “lately” had when he was on his way home from the pub: “I wasnae fou,” he reassures us, “but just had plenty” – plenty enough not to able to count the horns of the moon rising over the Cumnock Hills. (Himself an Ayrshire man, Ken pointed out how firmly rooted the poem is in time and place, and he related this back to traditional Scottish ballads.) The narrator meets a strange fellow carrying a scythe:

I there wi' Something did forgather,
That pat me in an eerie swither;
An' awfu' scythe, out-owre ae shouther,
Clear-dangling, hang;
A three-tae'd leister on the ither
Lay, large an' lang.

Only a Scot, Ken said, would have the cheek to accost this eery figure: "Guid-een," quo' I; "Friend! hae ye been mawin?” The figure does not reply, so the narrator tries again: "Friend! whare ye gaun? Will ye go back?" Back to the pub with the narrator, that is! Then, at last, the figure speaks: “My name is Death.” Whereupon the narrator, nothing daunted, warns him that he’s armed, and brandishes his knife . . .

I can’t remember what this type of poem is called, but I do remember that its tail-rhyme stanza is known as the Standard Habbie, based on Robert Sempill of Beltrees’s use of the form in “The Life and Death of Habbie Simpson”. I’m not sure if the irony is somehow inherent to the form or if it strikes me so because so many Standard Habbie poems are full of irony.

“Holy Willie’s Prayer” is a prime example. Again, I remember the poem from Kenneth Simpson reading it in class. I’ll never forget the artistic break he made after “O Lord! yestreen, Thou kens, wi’ Meg –”, leaving space for the narrator to revel in the memory . . . And then it goes on, “Thy pardon I sincerely beg.” The class roared with laughter.

For all his poking fun at holier-than-thou self-righteousness, Burns’s poems are never cold or unforgiving. Man or mouse, he feels with all feeling creatures: “Wee, sleekit, cowrin, tim’rous beastie . . .” he famously addresses a mouse whose nest he’d turned up with the plough. You’ll know the poem even if you don’t know it, because John Steinbeck got the title for one of his novels from these lines in stanza 7:

But Mousie, thou art no thy lane
In proving foresight may be vain;
The best-laid schemes of mice and men
Gang aft agley,
An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain
For promis’d joy!

“To a Mouse” isn’t one of my favourite Robert Burns poems – some of his works are a bit too bide-a-wee for me. But he wrote many poems involving animals: there’s “The Auld Farmer’s New-Year Morning Salutation to his Auld Mare, Maggie”, “To a Louse (On Seeing One on a Lady’s Bonnet at Church)”, “On Seeing a Wounded Hare Limp by me”, “On Scaring Some Water-Fowl in Loch Turit”, “On Hearing a Thrush sing on a Morning Walk in January” (see what I mean about bide-a-wee?).

The two “Mailie” poems are wonderful, though. In my edition of Burns Poems and Songs, “The Death and Dying Words of Poor Mailie, the Author’s Only Pet Yowe: An Unco Mournfu’ Tale” is followed by “Poor Mailie’s Elegy”. If you’ve ever had a pet, you’ll sympathize with the opening lines:

Lament in rhyme, lament in prose
Wi’ saut tears tricklin down your nose.

I was checking the index for “The Last Dying Words of Bonnie Heck”, but it’s not by Robert Burns at all, as I might have known had I remembered the entire title, which goes on, “a Famous Grey-hound in the Shire of Fife”. Burns’s rural poems are all set in Ayrshire! “Bonnie Heck” was written by William Hamilton of Gilbertfield and, according to the Penguin Book of Scottish verse, it was the poem that started the craze for mock elegies later taken up by Burns.

Mare, ewe, mouse, or man: the poem I turn to most often is the “Address to the Unco Guid”. It is charity itself.

Address To The Unco Guid

O ye wha are sae guid yoursel',
Sae pious and sae holy,
Ye've nought to do but mark and tell
Your neibours' fauts and folly!
Whase life is like a weel-gaun mill,
Supplied wi' store o' water;
The heaped happer's ebbing still,
An' still the clap plays clatter.

Hear me, ye venerable core,
As counsel for poor mortals
That frequent pass douce Wisdom's door
For glaikit Folly's portals:
I, for their thoughtless, careless sakes,
Would here propone defences
Their donsie tricks, their black mistakes,
Their failings and mischances.

Ye see your state wi' theirs compared,
And shudder at the niffer;
But cast a moment's fair regard,
What maks the mighty differ;
Discount what scant occasion gave,
That purity ye pride in;
And (what's aft mair than a' the lave),
Your better art o' hidin.

Think, when your castigated pulse
Gies now and then a wallop!
What ragings must his veins convulse,
That still eternal gallop!
Wi' wind and tide fair i' your tail,
Right on ye scud your sea-way;
But in the teeth o' baith to sail,
It maks a unco lee-way.

See Social Life and Glee sit down,
All joyous and unthinking,
Till, quite transmugrified, they're grown
Debauchery and Drinking:
O would they stay to calculate
Th' eternal consequences;
Or your more dreaded hell to state,
Damnation of expenses!

Ye high, exalted, virtuous dames,
Tied up in godly laces,
Before ye gie poor Frailty names,
Suppose a change o' cases;
A dear-lov'd lad, convenience snug,
A treach'rous inclination
But let me whisper i' your lug,
Ye're aiblins nae temptation.

Then gently scan your brother man,
Still gentler sister woman;
Tho' they may gang a kennin wrang,
To step aside is human:
One point must still be greatly dark,
The moving Why they do it;
And just as lamely can ye mark,
How far perhaps they rue it.

Who made the heart, 'tis He alone
Decidedly can try us;
He knows each chord, its various tone,
Each spring, its various bias:
Then at the balance let's be mute,
We never can adjust it;
What's done we partly may compute,
But know not what's resisted.

(Text courtesy of https://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/robertburn...)

[tala]

read - Letter to the Twins

[Wesley]

Not that it wasn’t fun to read these, it’s just that Burns’s poetry, in this copy at least, is all rendered in the Scots, which I’m not particularly versed in. What’s more is that several selections included his songs, the tunes to which I do not know and thus couldn’t enjoy on the page so much.

There are several poems that are easier to read and enjoy than others, but there are far more that are difficult to follow and, this is a sticky point, not much worth the effort of piecing together. However, if you want to have some real fun, read any of these aloud.

[Catherine]

John Anderson, My Jo

John Anderson, my jo, John,
When we were first acquent;
Your locks were like the raven,
Your bonie brow was brent;
But now your brow is beld, John,
Your locks are like the snaw;
But blessings on your frosty pow,
John Anderson, my jo.

John Anderson, my jo, John,
We clamb the hill thegither;
And mony a cantie day, John,
We've had wi'ane anither:
Now we maun totter down, John,
And hand in hand we'll go,
And sleep thegither at the foot,
John Anderson, my jo.

[Angela]

Feeling nostalgic about Scotland, couldn't resist this version selected by Don Paterson, one of my favourite Scottish poets

[Lyana Rodriguez]

3.5 stars.

[Shannon]

3.75

I loved some of these poems and others I found boring but all in all a fun read!

[Anna]

I give this 5 stars not only for the poetry but also for the insightful introduction by Don Paterson.