NOTHING could be further from
the truth than the “popular”

Picture of Burns as a heathen--

taught ploughman, sta®gering
from one drunken revel to an-
other with an occasional pause
for some amorous adventure.

To understand this clearly, one
Only needs to glance briefly at
the background of the times in
which he lives.

Tremendous economic changes _

in town and country were open-
ing the way for the development
of large-scale industry and agri-
culture. To enter on the voca-
tion of tenant-farmer was a risky
undertaking, requiring consider-
able capital in order to develop
the new farming methods.

When William Burness, father
of the poet, first became a tenant-
farmer at Mount Oliphant, in Car-
rick, he had no financial reserves.
His soil was poor and he had to
borrow money to stock the farm,
With the result that he had a con-

Stant struggle to keep his head
above water.

Robert’s lot, at this time, in his
Own words, was “the cheerless
gloom of a hermit with the un-
ceasing toil of a galley slave.”

Gilbert Burns has told how
butcher’s meat was unseen an
their table from one year’s end
to the other, and that his brother
Was the principal laborer on the
farm on his fifteenth birthday.

Undoubtedly the heavy toil,
With long hours in the damp and
cold, together with an inadequate

diet, helped to create the condi-.

tions for the rheumatic fever
which racked the poet in later

years and brought him to an early
death,

Not much time for roistering
there! And similar conditions pre-
Vailed with little change in Loch-
lea, Mossgiel and Ellisland.

*

From the nature of his life
urns was early brought up
‘against the oppressors of the poor
farmers, the arrogant landed
Sentry. He resented the glaring
Contrast between their useless
lives of luxury and the penury
Which rewarded his unremitting
toil. But above all, he hated their
arrogant assumption of God-giv-
€n greatness.

In “Man Was Made to Mourn”
1S independent spirit rebels at
the abject poverty of so many of
1s countrymen. :

“If I'm designed yon lording’s
slave—
Y Nature’s law designed—
Vhy Was an independent wish
er planted in my mind?”

If not, why am I subject to
's cruelty, or scorn?
Or why has man the will and
Pow’r ;
To make his fellow mourn?”
*
Thanks largely to his father,
Obert had an extensive, if un-
Systematic, education in his early
Years and was able to converse
Teely on subjects generally con-
Sidered far outside the ken of a
Poor farmer, He was particularly

active in the controversies then
‘aging within the Scottish Kirk.

A movement was afoot to liber-
alge the grim Calvinist religion
hen dominant in Scotland, but
he ruling party, “the lads in

ack,” fought hard to retain the
fystem which enabled them to
€rrorize their flocks with the

Teat of Hell-fire and damnation.

Hedenia was a natural enemy of
‘ © hypocrites who flourished on
religion so rigid and dictatorial,

me utts: who hated tyranny, was
ae by a great compassion for
toiling humanity. He loved

\

- unofficial

é

Vancouver honors the memory of Robert Burns in this statue, weii known fo citizens, erected in Stanley Park.

Burns

his people and- his work rigns
with his desire to be of service
to his country. He was a patriot,
but not of the flag-waving jingo
tribe. He tells how, when very
young:

“Even then a wish (I mind its
power)—

A wish that at my latest hour

Shall strongly heave my breast—

That | for poor auld Scotiand’s
sake

Some useful plan or book could
make

Or sing a sang at least.”

Sing a sang? He sang hundreds
upon hundreds. With his friends,
Johnson and Thomson of Edin-
burgh, he set himself the task of
rescuing the folksongs of Scot-
land from oblivion.

To many old airs, he wrote
new words: Others, he merely
touched up and passed on to us,
all the better for having passed
through the hands of a master
craftsman.

These songs, with the scores
‘of new compositions he contrib-
uted himself, provide Scotland
with a treasure-house of folk-
songs, second to none.

*

Yet too seldom we recognize
that this work was done at a time
when Burns was in failing health
and working long hours at his
farm and excise duties. It is not
too. much to say that he may have
shortened his life by the extra
strain thus imposed on his al-
ready weak constitution.

In that other great patriotic
song “Scots Wha Hae,” now the
national

see how Burns’

Scotland, we

patriotism blends with the true
spirit of internationalism.
In a letter to Thomson, he

anthem of.

ty

e patrio

WS
WS

ROBERT BURNS, born January 25, 1759.

——By DAVID McDOWALL——

pointed out that it was occasioned
by “accidental recollections of
that glorious- struggle for free-
dom associated with the glowing
ideas of some other struggle of
the same nature, not quite so
ancient.”

The fight for liberty in France

and the United States in the 18th
century were linked in his mind

with the great struggle for Scot-

independence almost 500

years earlier.

The struggle of all peoples for
independence and freedom is de-
picted in the “Ode” written on
George’ Washington’s birthday.

“See gathering thousands, while
i sing,

A broken chain, exulting, bring

And dash it in a tyrant’s face

And dare him to his very beard,
And tell him he no more is fear-
ea

The warmongers would hardly
have found support from a man
who could write. these poignant
lines in “Logan Braes.”

“OQ wae upon you, Men o’ State,

That bretheren rouse to deadly
hate!

As ye make mony a fond heart
mourn,

Sae may it on your heads return!

How can your flinty hearts enjoy

The widow's tear, the orphan’s

cry!

But soon may peace bring happy
days,
And Willie

Braes!”

hame to Logan

Where was it all to end? Burns’
answer comes as clear as a bell.

“The Golden Age we'll then re-
vive

Each man will be a brother,

In harmony we all shall live

And share the earth together,

In virtue trained, enlightened
youth

Will love each fellow creature

And future years will prove
the truth

That man is good by nature:

Then let us toast with three times
three

The reign of peace and liberty.”

*

The picture that emerges from
a serious study of Burns is not of
a worthless drunken rake, but of
a patriot and fighter for freedom
and democracy, a2 man who loved
his country’ and his people, who
foresaw for them a future greater
even than their glorious past and
who was prepared to fight with
them to achieve it :

It is no wonder his works are
popular in the socialist world.
Wherever men strive for freedom
and a better life, the name of
Robert Burns, poet and champion
of the common man, will be re-
manieed with honor and grati-
ude.

’ PACIFIC TRIBUNE — JANUARY 21, 1955 — PAGE 9