Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1888-01-25
The Plough Boy Poet.

70 the EDITOR or the Gazette.
To-day is great day in Scotland and
dear to Scots everywhere, it being the
one hundred and thirtieth anniversary
of their nationsl hero, household poet
and almost divinity-Robert Burns. AS
you resd these lines the vSulted roofs OF
"Tam O'Shanter's" tavern, on the banks
of the Ayr, echo the screaming bagpipe's
refrain, "Scots VIVA haze VII Wallace
bled;" many hearts are being made glad
by Lowlsnd ale and sparkling wine; while
"the iva Briggs" scross the Ayr are
fhronged with votsries p.sslI g to pay de-
votion at his tomb. The feeling that he
wss not well trested by his time has
caused an almost extravagant reaction in
his favor; and to-day Burns is more the
patron saint of Scotland than Saint An
drews or Saint Margaret, in that he
overturned religious systems and bypoc-
risies and slated nature where artificial
ity had been.
It may be of interest at this time to
take 3 glance at his life and notice the
cause of his popularity.
Burns was born in the parish Of Al
loway, Scotland, near the river Ayr, made
immortal by his songs. He always felt
that he was born out OF his station in
life, and was so much ia advance OF his
time hat fifty years were required to
catch up with him. Living in cottage
of clsy that was continually caviDg in,
suffering the depths of poverty, toiling
like galley slave to support his virtuous
parents, barefooted, barehegded, but
grasping at every opportunity CT scquir
ing knowledge from men and books,
Burns came to his thirteenth year. At
this early age he WAS familiar with the
history OF his country and loved its very
soil; and while he worshlped the memory
OF Scotland's ancient patriots and
mourned her departed great-
ness, his heart burned with
a desire to do something for
old Scotland's sake. He compares the
wild STRINGS Of his ambition to the
| "blind groupings OF Homer's CYclops
round the walls of his cave" But we
see in the precocious maturity of his
passions and intellect, his exquisite SEN
sibility and tenderness, the morai CEN
trasts or blendings that belong to the
spirit of romantic poetry, and which be-
speak the future greatness OF the man.
He was always in love. At the age Of
fifteen he made it his profession and at
nineteen adopted II as the great end OF
| his existence. His amours were not
| fantastic images of the brain, but real
istic. At sixteen, inspired by his first
love "for benny, sweet, sonsie lass"
mis- companion In the harvest field, ne
sings his first sonnet OF the
heart. But while at school he for
gets the little lsssie OF his first
burst of song and writes of another, who
sets him at tangent from the sphere OF
his studies, crazes the faculties OF his
soul about her, struggles with his sines
and cosines for a few days more, until
meeting her in the garden one noon
Like Proserpine, gathering flowers,
Herself faIer flower,
he gives up geom try and only strives to
be with her. In less than a year we see
him with another sprightly blue-eyed
creature, amiable and trusting, standing
on either side of q babbling brook, hold
ing Bible between them, dipping their
hands in the pure limpid waters, and
vowing eternal consistency, then parting
never to meet again. Soon after, while
strolling in the evening time, listening to
the song of birds, his vision is
gladdened by Gone Of the fairest
pieces of natures workmanship
tD6t ever CrUWutu pOStlC loHusCapo'
He falls in love with her and sings "My
Mary" into immortality. Shortly, st
Edinburgh. meets dashing young
widow, the celebrated Clarinda, who
Tame sarcastically says "was almost q
lady;" admires, loves with deathless
affection, and swears to remember her
till he shall cease to be; but thereafter
he writes to Jean Armour, afterwards his
wife:
by night, by day, a field, at home
The thoughts of thee my breast inhame,
And, aye, muse and sing thy name;
/ only live to love thee.
Though were doomed to wander on
Beyond the sea, beyond the sun,
Till my last weary sand was run,
TIL then-and then l love thee.
Thus we might continue this theme, but
space forbids.
When pressed to tell why he never ap-
piled himself to Latin, paively replies:
81 have learned all the Latin 1 desire to
know, and that Is "omnis vincit amor"
But this love was not confined to the
lassies alone His heart flowed out in