Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-08-02
SCOTLAND'S SINGER.
Wakeman Places a Poets Wreath
at the Shrine of Burns.
TIE INCIDENTS OF HIS CAREER
And the Lights and Shadows Of His Life
Most Vividly Pictured.
DUNFRIES Rich IN RELICS OF BURNS


DUNFRIEs, Scotland, July 20-Bordel
wars and border minstrelsy have given th'
whole south Of Scotland heritage Of un
dying interest and enthrallment. Coming
upon it with eyes looking out of the depths
Of history and sentiment, every object in
nature msrshals host of armored specter,
from the crowded cloister of q romantic snt
thrilling past But there is another and ar
immortal presence here. As the husbandry
ofpeace heals the scars OF bloody battle, a;
the very flowers Of the field in precious
compensation thickest grow where carnage
and fury leave their deepest stains, there
came to this wraith-rank region a lustrou!
soul so simple and rugged, sweet and grand
tender and majestic, weak and mighty,
that, throughout the weird, wild land in
which it blosSomed. nature seems to pause
In endless shine and bloom. Out of the
stain and scar, out of intolerance and big.
otry, out of ignorance and serfdom, out oi
helotry and hindship, came one rustic seri
whose humble plowshare turned beneath
the burrows of his brief toll all the hatred,
superstitition, intolerance, of a thousand
warning years One Scottish southland
peasant voice not only fused into ilIimitsble
tenderness an Scotia's stern and granite
soul, but gave imperishable songs 70 the uni
verSal human heart.
WHERE BURNS WAS CROWNED.
To all the people of Scotland SO dear has
the memory of this man become, that three
of the southwestern shires of the kingdom
Ayrshire in which the peasant-poet was
born, Kirkcudbrightshire where be wan
dered and sang, and Dumfriesshire, where
he lived, loved, sang and died-are known
only as Burns Land" However winsome
are the memories OF his early life beside the
Doom, in Ayr; however stamped by the
wondrOus coinage Of his genius, which like
some magic alchemy transformed all things
Burns touched, or named, or knew, to gold, =,
the braes and burns of Kirkcudbright NAV
be; TO my fancy fair Dumfriesshire was the
imperial palace of his worldwide realm;
and this gray old town of Dumfries itself
his very throne. Here flows the wimpling
NTH, from its sources in the Lead and Low
ther hills, down past the little farm Of Ellis
land, where with his faithful wife Jean he
wrought those brief and happiest DAYS of
his life. Here still stands the house on
Bank street, formerly the "Wee Venuel,"
the three little upper rooms of which were
his first ''city' home. The old tavern where
he registered and sang is just as be lett it.
His last earthly habitation was the same
humble cottage you now find alongside the
Ragged School" in Burns street, known as
Mill street In the olden days. And in the
stately mausoleum beneath the shadows of
ancient St. Michael's kirk, surrounded by
the graves and monuments of those who for
800 years went be ore him into the infinite
mystery, he lies asleep, true and loyal Jean
still near him, and all their BARNS beside
them in the wakeless rest.
You or pilgriming here to the shrine of
Burns will involuntarily recall the princi-
pal incidents iu his career previous to mis-
identification with the old border city of
DumirieS. This can be best told, partially
in the language OF others. In the period be-
tween May, 1885, at the age of % years, and
the end of the year 1871, when he came from
the ElliSlaud iarm to the three rooms in the
"Wee VeHnel," in Dumfries, a period of
bat AZ years, more personal hope and dis
appointment joy and suffering, anguish
from impulsive wrongdoing and heaven of
the purest domestic bliss, temptation and
victory, agonized despair and triumph, had
been crowded into the poets experiences,
than fall to the lott of most great men in their
entire lives. In this brief time, first be was
dIsowned and deserted by Jean Armour,
through the bitter and ever unreasoning op-
position of her iather. He was then be-
trothed to Highland Mary" Campbell, the
heroine of his immortal ode, 'To Mary in
Heaven" who shortly died of malignant
fever at Greenock. and over whose grave in
the kirkyard of the Old or West Church, in
that city, monument was placed bearing
the inscriDtiou.