bold

an.
Liberty’s

‘Tis Liberty’s bold note I swell,

| Thy harp, Columbia, let me take!
See gathering thousands while I sing,
A broken chain exulting bring,
And dash it in the tyrant’s face.

By JOCK

note

—Robert Burns

GRAHAM

ROBERT BURNS: 1759-1796

JHE 158th anniversary of the
of the birth of Robert Burns

is being commemorated through-
out the world this week.

Unfortunately too many of
these commemoration gatherings
will pay their homage to a very
small part of the real Burns.

Only in Socialist

countries,
where his prediction ;

“,. .. that man to man the world
o’er

Shall Brothers be for a’ that,”

is being realised will the full

messsage of Burns to mankind be

received and worthily recognised

and applauded. \

Burns was a worker. Before he
was in his teens, in the barren

' fields of small farms he “toiled

like' a galley slave” (to use his
own words) from daylight to dark,

‘finishing up the last few of his 87

years’ existence as a government
exciseman on a miserable salary
of about £50 a year.

He lived during a period of |

great social and political change.

He was 16 at the start of the
American War of Independence
in 1775, and 24 when it ended
with the United States gaining its
independence from Britain in
1783.

Six years later, in 1789, he wit-
nessed the beginning of the
French Revolution with the upris-
ing of the oppressed against their
oppressors, and the historic storm-
ing of the Bastille by the work-
ers of Paris.

Burns ardently supported both
struggles for freedom:
“'Tis Liberty's bold note | swell,
Thy harp, Columbia, let me take!
See gathering thousands while |
sing,
A broken chain exulting bring,
And dash it in the tyrant’s face.”

Like all truly great poets, from
Chaucer to Shakespeare and down
to the present day, Burns hated
war... On the occasion of a Na-

tional Thanksgiving for a great
naval victory he wrote:

“a

+ + + For shame! give o’er, pro-
ceed no further,

God won't accept your thanks for
murder.”

And again:

“lt murder hate by field or flood
Though glory’s name may screen
us,” ; :

The outspokenness of Burns,
against the tyrants of his day
earned him the undying hatred
of the “Upper Circle.” And right

there began the slanderous stories

of Burns’ supposed licentious and
disssolute life which have persist-
ed to our own time.

\

oG

A bonnie fighter for peace and
freedom and democratic liberties,
Burns was often in trouble with
the excise, authorities for whom
he worked in Dumfries — and on
one occasion was told that he

‘ must be “silent and obedient” on

pain of dismissal.

There were, too, veiled threats
of deportation to New Holland.

The adherents of toryism went
after him in a big way.

Fearing a police raid, Burns
hid some of his books, including
Tom Paine’s Age of Reason, which

is among the books the U.S. witch-
hunters authorities are banning
today. *

-He wrote to the editor of the
Edinburgh Gazeteer, then found-
ed to champion political reform:

“Go on, sir, lay bare with un-
daunted heart. and steady hand

j ~ the horrid mess of corruption

called politics and statecraft.

“Dare to draw in their native
colors, these ‘Calm, thinking vil-
Jains, whom no faith can fix’,
whatever the shibboleth of their

_ pretended party.”

The government’s limitation of

human rights drew from him the -

challenge:

“Here’s freeedom to them that
would read, ;

“Here’s freeedom to them tha
would write

There’s none ever feared that the
truth would be ‘heard,

But them whom the truth would »

indite.”

The labor movement of our
own day, may well heed the ad-
vice he gave in his lines support-
ing women’s struggle: :

“. .. When even children lisp the
Rights of Man—

Amid this mighty ‘fuss iust let me
mention,

“2 man’s a man for a’ that”

a

The rights of women merit some
attention.”

It was more than the Battle of
Bannockburn, “that glorious
struggle for freedom,” that stir-
red him to song. It was, he said,
“other similar struggles, not quite
sc ancient.”

He thought of the oath of the
Friends of the People, Live Free
or Die, when he sang:

“. .. Tyrants fall in every foe
Liberty’s in every blow
Let us do or die.”

Burns’

By TOM McEWEN -

AS our thougnts turit once again

to the Immortal Memory of
Scotland’s national Bard, his star
ever in the ascendency, bringing
hope and joy to the hearts of mil-

lions of the world’s peoples, it is

good to learn that the Oxford
University Press has added still
another volume to its great treas-
ure house of world classics: Sel-
ected Letters of Robert Burns,
edited and with an introduction

‘by De Lancey Ferguson.

This is a book which every true
lover of Robbie Burns will treas-

‘ure and enjoy, reading and re-

reading letters to his patrons,
friends and cronies; letters which
lay bare the soul of an immortal
ploughman and a matchless
genius.

These letters written by Burns
express the joys, the innumer-
able sorrows, the struggle to keep
body and soul together; the long
years of poverty and the few
short hours of plenty.

They show his appreciation of
the advice and kindly criticism
of his true patrons, and his own

, evaluation of thosé others among

the Edinburgh “literati” who
basked in their “patronage” of
his genius, but never allowed him
te forget his humble ploughman
origin. : ; *

These letters reveal the man.
When he wrote them, often in
the deepest anguish, they were in-
tended only for the good friend
to whom they were addressed:

adopted annexational aims on
Savoy and invaded Holland.

In somewhat similar circum-
stances. Marx and Engels support-
ed Prussia in the Franco-Prussian
war of 1870, more than 80 years
later, and withdrew their support
when Prussia likewise became an
aggressor.

The love songs of Burns may,
perhaps, be his chief work.

His satirical poems like “The
Holy Fair” did much to destroy
the devil-and-brimstone doctrines
of Calvinism. But “freedom,
manhood and brotherhood,” as
Longfellow claims, formed the
burdens and master chords of his
song.

Lafargue says, “Dante and
Burns were among his (Marx’s)
favorite poets, and it was always
a delight to him to hear his daugh-
ters recite Burns’ satirical poems
and sing his love songs.”

And so it was that the muck-
rakers of history should pay him
so much attention.

It is easy to slander the dead.
And it is as popular and profit-
‘able under capitalism as it was
in the days of Jesus to crucify
militant peacemakers and reform-
ers. ‘

“Gold,” said Shakespeare,
“Mak’st them kiss that, speak’st
with every tongue to every pur-
pose.”

The Soviet people hold Burns
in high esteem as they do kindred
fighters in prerevolutionary strug-
gles for liberation.

Burns called for a united peo-
ple to resist oppression; for with-
out united resistance, as the
Soviet poet, Alexel Surkov, puts
it:

“. .. Darkness and slavery comes
into sway ...

Then rise in a wall of universal
FanKS 0c

Theré is an old Highland say-
ing: “Nothing remains that the
loom weaveth but the song that
the loom weaveth not.”

Burns’ story and song live on
to inspire us in our march along
the road to peace and the libera-
tion of mankind.

@ Jock Graham, who wrote this
article is well known in Ausi-
ralia as the “coalfields poet.”

letters

‘Unlike the letters and “memoirs”

of alleged statesmen, written with
an eye to publication and gen-
erally released a generation later
to vindicate their crimes and stu-
Pidities against the public weal,
the Burns’ letters are man-to- —
man communications, portraying
the great human virtues of the
recipient, and the true heart and
greatness of the Bard.

His lengthy letter to Dr. John
Moore, written in Mauchline on
August 2, 1787, is an intensely
human document revealing the
man, his pride in his humble eall-
ing; the scholar, who loved books
and who knew how to sift: the
gold from the dross; the poet,
who knew that what he had creat-
ed would endure, thus sharing his ~
joys with others.

In his introduction to this new
and valuable Oxford classic, De-
Lancey Ferguson~-says: “This is

- Burns as he was, with all his

pride and passion, his ‘skinless
sensibility’ and his bawdry; above
all with his Scots Patriotism.”

_ This is neither the sugar-coated
poet of the birthday orators, nor
the profligate of the smoke-room
anecdotes. This is the man him-
self, as he lived and loved, as he
ae and répented and endur-
ed. j

Selected Letters of Robert
Burns is obtainable here at the
People’s Cooperative Bookstore,
337 West Pender Street. Modest-
ly priced at $1.25, lovers of Burns
will find this volume a rich addi-

tion to their bookshelves.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — JANUARY 22, 1954 — PAGE 9