Morning journal and courier., 1890-08-02


robert Burns-ImPerishabie Songs
Given TO tho Universal Human
Heartfelt the Grave OF Highland
mary-Burns, Local Fame-A Tour
OF the Border Counties OF England
and scotland.
DUMFRIKs, Scotland, July 10.
To the editor Of the JOURNAL AND COURIER:
Border wars and border minstrelsy have
given the whole south of Scotland heritage
of undying interest and enthrallment. Com
ing upon &c with eyes looking out of the
depths of history and sentiment, every OBJ
ject in nature marshals host of armored
spectres from the crowded cloister of ro-
mantic and thrilling past. But there is an
other and an immortal presence here. As
the husbandry of peace heals the scars of
bloody battle, as the very flowers of the
field in precious compensation thickest grow
where carnage and fury leave their deepest
stains, there came to this wrath rank region
a lustrous soul so simple and rugged, sweet
and grand, tender and majestic, weak and
mighty, that, throughout the weird, wild
land in which 1t blossomed, nature seems to
pause in endless shine and bloom. Out of
the stain and scar, out of intolerance and
bigotry, out of ignorance and serfdom, ont
of helotry and hindship. came one rustic
serf whose humble ploughshare turned be-
meath the furrow of his brief toll all the
hatred, superstition, intolerance, of a thou.
sand warning years. One Scottish southland
peasant voice not only fused into illimitable
tenderness all Scotia's stern and granite soul,
but gave imperishsble songs to the universal
human heart.
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 he wandered
and sang, and Dumfriesshire, where he
lived, loved, sang and died-are known only
as Burns Land" However wiusome are
the memories of his early life beside the
Doom, in Ayr; however stamped by the won
drous coinage of his genius. which like some
msgic alchemy transformed all things Burns
touched, or named, or knew, to gold, the
brses and burns of Ktrkcubbright may be;
to my fancy fair Dumfriesshire was the im-
perial palace of his world wide realm; and
this gray of town OF Dumfries itself his very
throne. Here flows the whipping NTH,
from its sources in the Lead and Lowthel
| hills, down past the little farm of EllIsland,
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 Vennel," the three little
upper rooms of which were his first "city'
home. The old tavern where he registered
| and sang, Is just as he left it. His las
| earthly habitation was the same humble cot
| tage you now find alongside the Ragged
School" in Burns street, known as Mil
| street in the olden days And in the stately
mauioleum beneath the shadows of sncien
st. Michsels kirk, surrounded by the grave.
and monuments of those who for eight hun
dred years went before him into the infinit
mystery, he lies asleep, true and loyal Jeal
still near him, and all their BARNS besid
them In the wakeless rest.
You or pilgriming here to the shrine Q
Burns will 6rst involuntarily recall the prin
cipal incidents in his career previous to hi
Identification with the old border city @
Dumfries. This can be best told partially
the language of Others. In the period be
tween May, 1856, at the age of twenty-seve
years, and the end of the year 1871, when b
came from the Ellisland farm to the thre
roous in the "Wee Vennel," in Dumfries,
period of but four and one half years, mol
personal hope and disappointment, joy an
suffering, anguish from impulsive wrc-
doing and heaven of the purest domest
bliss, temptation and victory, agonized d,
spair and triumph, had been crowded ini
the poets experiences, than fall 10 the lot
most great men in their entire lives. In tn
brief time, frat he was disowned and
serted by Jean Armour, through the bitt
and ever unreasoning opposition of b,
i
land Mary" Campbell, the heroine of b
immortal ode TO Mary in Heaven" WI
shortly died of malignant fever at Greenocl
and over whose grave in the kirk yard of Il
Old or West church, In that city, a mony
ment was placed bearing the inscription: