honourable sense that the sentimental poetry of the late eighteenth century, at its best, embodies a tragically irreconcilable sense that the great Enlightenment impulse towards the recognition of all human worth will not lead to a just, fearless democratic society. In 1802, his radicalism diminished, Wordsworth wrote his To the Daisy. It is, not least in metrical form, significantly influenced by Burns’s version:
Methinks that there abides in thee
Some concord with humanity,
Given to no other flower I see
The forest through.
To Ruin
First printed in the Kilmarnock edition, 1786.
All hail! inexorable lord!
At whose destruction-breathing word,
The mightiest empires fall!
Thy cruel, woe-delighted train,
5 The ministers of Grief and Pain,
A sullen welcome, all!
With stern-resolv’d despairing eye,
I see each aimed dart;
For one has cut my dearest tye,
10 And quivers in my heart.
Then low’ring and pouring,
The Storm no more I dread;
Tho’ thick’ning and black’ning
Round my devoted head.
15 And thou grim Pow’r, by Life abhorr’d,
While Life a pleasure can afford,
Oh! hear a wretch’s pray’r!
No more I shrink appall’d, afraid;
I court, I beg thy friendly aid,
20 To close this scene of care!
When shall my soul, in silent peace,
Resign Life’s joyless day?
My weary heart its throbbings cease,
Cold-mould’ring in the clay?
25 No fear more, no tear more
To stain my lifeless face,
Enclasped and grasped
Within thy cold embrace!
This was probably written in the winter of 1781–2. This melancholic work in the bob-wheel stanza of the old Scots poem The Cherry and the Slae, reveals the poet’s holistic view that a God of Nature influences both the pleasure and the woes of life from the fall of historic Empires to individual experience. It is a distinctive brush-stroke of Burns to move from universal comment to a specific incident. The hardship of eighteenth-century rural existence on a leased farm, particularly during winter periods, energises the poem. The subtext is the poet’s rejection by a lover who is believed to be Alison Begbie.
Epistle to a Young Friend May, 1786
First printed in the Kilmarnock edition, 1786.
I lang hae thought, my youthfu’ friend, long have
A Something to have sent you,
Tho’ it should serve nae ither end no other
Than just a kind memento;
5 But how the subject-theme may gang, go
Let time and chance determine;
Perhaps it may turn out a Sang; song
Perhaps, turn out a Sermon.
Ye’ll try the world soon, my lad;
10 And, ANDREW dear believe me,
Ye’ll find mankind an unco squad, strange crowd
And muckle they may grieve ye: much
For care and trouble set your thought,
Ev’n when your end’s attained;
15 And a’ your views may come to nought,
Where ev’ry nerve is strained.
I’ll no say, men are villains a’:
The real, harden’d wicked,
Wha hae nae check but human law, who have no
20 Are to a few restricked; restricted
But, Och, mankind are unco weak very
An’ little to be trusted;
If Self the wavering balance shake,
It’s rarely right adjusted!
25 Yet they wha fa’ in Fortune’s strife, who fall
Their fate we should na censure, not
For still, th’ important end of life
They equally may answer:
A man may hae an honest heart, have
30 Tho’ Poortith hourly stare him; poverty, look over him
A man may tak a neebor’s part, neighbour’s
Yet hae nae cash to spare him. have no
Ay free, aff han’, your story tell, always, off hand/casual
When wi’ a bosom crony; close friend
35 But still keep something to yoursel
Ye scarcely tell to ony: any
Conceal yoursel as weel’s ye can well as
Frae critical dissection: from
But keek thro’ ev’ry other man look
40 Wi’ sharpen’d, sly inspection.
The sacred lowe o’ weel-plac’d love, flame, well-
Luxuriantly indulge it;
But never tempt th’ illicit rove,
Tho’ naething should divulge it: nothing
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