Saint Paul weekly Minnesotian. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1858-1859, 1859-02-12

Xnc WdV1HR VI PoAAhS
Above the thorny crown!
The choral praise, the chanted prayers
/ ---' From harps by angels strung, =
The hunted Camer0ns mountain airs,
49, The hymns that Luther sung! -
Yet, jarring not the heavenly notes,
The sounds of earth are heard,
As through the open minister floats
The song of breeze aud bird. =,
Not less the wonder of the sky,
That daisies bloom below,
The brook sings on, though loud and high
The cloudy organs blow.
And, if the tender car be Jared
That haply hears by turns
The sanity harp OF Olney bard,
The pastoral pipe of Burns,
No discord mars His perfect plan
Who gave them both tongue,
For, he who signs the love of man,
The love of God hath sung!
To-day be every fault forgiven
Of him in whom we Joy;
We take, with thanks, the gold of heaven,
And leave the earth's alloy. e.
Be ours his music as of spring,
His sweetness as of flowers,
The songs the bard himself might sing
In holier ears than ours.
Sweet airs of love and home, the hum
OF household melodies,
Come singing, as the robins come
To sing in dOOr-yard trees
And, heart to heart, two nations lean
No rival wreaths to twine,
But blending, in eternal green,
The holly and the pine
Worthy are these gentle sentiments of him
who said,
"Give lettcred pomp to teeth of Time,
So 'bonny Doom but tarry
Blot out the epic's stately rhyme,
But spare his Highland Mary"
Among all the Orations, pronounced upon
that memorable occasion, perhaps none will
be sought with more interest than that by
Henry Ward Beecher from faithful abstract
of which, we select the following para
graphs
"One hundred years ago, Jan. 10Th, 1909,
Agnes Brown Byrnes, gave to the world her
son Robert Burns. The father and the moth
er were Scotch the son only took Scotland
on his way into the whole world. While we
allow Scotchmen a suitable national pride in
their chief poet we cannot allow the world to
be robbed of their right and interest in Burns;
and vet there never was born to that land, so
fertile in men, a truer Scotchman and it is
the peculiar admiration and glory of the man,
that in spite of the obscurity of his birth,
bred under all the local influence, Scotch in
bone, in muscle, in culture and in dialect, he
rose higher than the special and the national,
and achieved his glory in those elements
which unite mankind, and make all nations of
one blood While men of science are debat-
ing about the origin of races, the poet strikes
the chords, and all races, peoples and tongues
hear, understand and agree, so that the poet
is, after all, the true ethnOlOgist; the human
heart is his heart he that knows how to touch
that with skill, belongs to no country, can be
shut in by no language, nor sequestered by
any age, but belongs to the world and to the
race.
"Thc same moral honesty, the same violence
of pride, the same breadth of understanding
the same impatience ofrestraint from without,
characterized the father and the more illustri-
GUS son. But, beside that, Robert Burns car
ried within him great deal of mother /; if
the father was the bush, the mother was the
blossom Agnes Brown was a woman Of hum
bic birth that is she was born as everybody
else was born. Being born was a very hum
bic business any way, and there was little
difference in the place or position. 1t was
very plain that she was effectually born, how
ever She brought into this world the seed of
many rare and precious faculties central and
| strong was her heart ! it had that deep ma
ture which religion always gave. Calm and Of
u heavenly tciHpcl, d SOOu uOuSShCSpCI, WHICH,
was very brave and noble thing in woman,
and thing often requiring more than to gov
em nation Gas nations are governed, Burns
mother was the mother of Burns poetry. 1t
was beautiful to hear her sing. Burns said
that blind uncle Of his had greater pleasure
than that of crying to hear her sing one of
her favorite songs. How many sweet sounds
there were in this world, how many sounds
of water and air, how many sound of birds
and musical Instruments, but nature had
nothing SO sweet as the mothers songs and
hymns and ballads by which children slept to
dream angels and walked to say mother
With such father, with such a mother, Burns
could not help himself Of course he must be
Apollo's arrow with such mother for the
bow and such father for string, an arrow
still flying and sounding as it flies. The father
of Burns had just built, and poorly built, a
clay cottage On the banks of the Doom, and
scarcely had the poet learned to live, that is
to cry, before high storm beat down the
house and drove them out. That storm nev.
er spent ITSELF but blew after him all his
life, ....... .... =.
He took his heart from both father and mo.
ther Her heart lay tranquil like one of the
sweet lakes of Scotland his beat like the At
| lantic on her Western shores. But no heart
was ever deeper, truer, more enduring than
his. He never loved, and cast off that he
might love again. Each love was link in the
long chain ofwhich his heart was the immova.
BILE staple. He, loved man, animals, every.
thing that grew, if it only grew in Scotland
mat he was more susceptible to woman than
10 man, was not strange the same thing had
happened before. o.
| Burns's own nature carried enough for
twenty common men of mere force of feeling.
he never triekled drop by drop prudentiallv :.
he gushed; he came down booming all abroad
like one of his own streams. The daisy was
not half SO Subject to the touch of the iron
I plow-share as he to the touch of that daisv,s
moist look Like the mountains of his own
land, he stood, often capped with storms, oft
ener shrouded with mists, often laundering
with the sound of waters But there also
| birds brooded and sung, and bees opened the
roses, and pure lakes lay rock-bopnd, looking
silently up to God. The stern and the gentle,
the rugged and the beautiful-a strange fel
lowship. How could this ambitious and gen.
erous heart make his way into life, and achieve
success 1t was question, not how man
should cary a cup brimful over rough and
scormy road at night 1t was not q question
OF "hat was right and what duty, but what
chance Robert Burns had with nature com.
pounded OF such eccehtricity and onnos;te
qualities-the profoundest melancholv with
the greatest sociality." - - =, ,'''' '''
y .Wsadia 4r. Bssehsr say in conclusion ).