Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1873-02-01
ROBERT BURNS.

Tile birthday of Robert Burns, the 18th Of
January, was generally observed in the larger
cities in commemoration of the poet The
Burns Association of Brooklyn gave dinner,
and Mr.. William Cullen Bryant, our Ameri-
can poet, was called upon to respond to the
toast, ''The Genius Of Burns" which he did
as follows:
The toast is 1.-The Genius Of Buns" Very
fifty, my friends, is the term genius, in its
highest meaning, applied to the literary char
acter of the great poet Of Scotland. To him
was given in large measure,
1.-The vision and the faculty diyne~
He possessed, in as high degree, think, as
ever man possessed, the power of which Cole
ridge speaks in defining the term genius, the
power to combine the child's sense Of wonder
and novelty with appearances which the ex-
perience Of years had rendered familiar. The
commonest objects, incidents of the slightest
apparent significance, were taken up by him,
and given back to US, TRANSPORTED and glorifed
by the thoughts which he had connected with
them, and which he had expressed in verse
that will endure as long as our language. 1t
is as if magician had scooped up handful
of gravel from the trodden highway, and
shown it in his palm transformed to grains OF
glttering gold and precious stones respondent
with an inward light.
| admit that in his songs Burns was dis
ciple of those who composed the old Scottish
songs and ballads, and whose names have per-
ished while their verses are immortal A
breath of fire from the times in which they
lived touched the inflammable material in his
bosom and it was instantly in blaze. He
wrote songs in their manner, with all their
simplicity and sweetness, and yet in excellence
went beyond them.
But there are other productions of his for
which he found no pattern in our literature.
/ find none for his Tam O'Shanter the very
pearl of comic poems. 1t is written in the
same measure as Buffers Hudbras, but what
difference! a difference owing simply to
this, that Butler was man of wit and Burns
a man of genius. Butler is prolific in droll
conceits; he hammers them out one after an
other, and filings them down in clusters, but
he is infinitely tiresome, and we yawn over
his pages. However resolute we are to read
on, our jaws will expand in spite of ourselves.
Burns has all that Bntler has, but he has also
all that Butler lacks-rapid action, narrative
interest, joyous gaiety, imagination, apt
touches of character and free and flowing
numbers. These make the poem original and
place it beyond imitation.
When, in reading the poems of Burns, we
come to that beginning with the line,
"Wee, modest, crimson tipped flower"
occasioned by uprooting daisy with the
share of the plough which he guided across
the field, and when we reach the beautiful
companion piece to this, beginning with the
words,
Wee, sleekit, cowerin, tmoroa5 beaste,o
and ask ourselves where Burns found the
prototype of these charming poems, we are
obliged to confess that he found them not in
all our literature. We have had others since
in the like vein, but it was Burns who showed
us how to write them. Both of them are tes-
timonies to the largeness of his sympathies-
sympathies which extended to every form of
life between the caverns of the earth and the
stars of the sky which comprehended the
lowliest flower of the field and the humblest
animal that burrows in the earth, as well as
the nobler forms of existence. The hand that
penned the verses of which have just spoken |
wrote down the pathetic lines entitled ".ro |
Mary. in Heaven" and that glorious poem
"The Cotters Saturday Night"
An old Roman poet was the author of the |
often-quoted saying, 81 am a man, and there |
is nothing human that does not interest me"
noble sentiment; but Burns in his poems
gave it a wider application, and showed that
there was nothing in the great universe, the
dwelling of the human race, that did not in |
terest him. He perceived in every form of
animal or vegetable life, whether it moves on |
the earth or winnows the air, or swims the
waters, or fixes its roots in the soil, some re-
lation to the fortunes of human beings. He
saw by what harmonies unperceived by the
common mind they were allied to human des-
tiny, and as he spoke of them he invested
them, to our apprehension, with that radiant
newness which we may conceive them to have
worn in the sight of the first man when he
opened his eyes on the fresh creation around
him. Such is the genius of Burns.
According to the Lockwood Union the peo-
Pile of that city know when Saturday has