The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1897-01-24
ROBERT BURNS.
Born January Is. 1859.

Amid the varied scenes of life
Its joys and pleasures pain and strife
Amid the gross and sOrdid cares
That every working hour bears;
Oft riding from our encountered mind
Things of n nObler. better kind
From all such thoughts let us today
Look back u century. The ray
OF immortality will lead
Our steps, as onward we proceed,
And guide US to that humble shed
Where natures bard was born and bred
No guardian angels hailed his birth,
No star beamed gladness on the earth;
But wintry tempests shook the sky
As prologue to his dexterity.
A peasant lad, unlearned, unknown,
We see him stealing forth alone
To some remote and quiet place
To study natures book. and trace
To their own fount his own bright
dreams.
A rustic bard, who, at the pillow,
Learned his sweet art from every bough;
The chanting linnet and the thrush
Hailed the sun from green thorn bush;
The soaring lark. the red-breaSt shrill,
Or plover whistling o'er the hill;
A covering, timid mouse fees by,
A mountain daisy meets his eye,
And in 4 sweet and tender strain
The poets thoughts burst forth again.
g @ 90
Gone are the days, the poet gone,
And Scotland wakes to claim her SON
Wakes TO remember that her arm
Was slow in shielding him from harm;
Nor stripped from his sad life the cloud
That gathered him as in shroud.
In vain she rears the stored stone
To him whose memory needeth none.
He built his own immortal pile,
Which time and tide can never spoil.
The ungrateful world. methinks, could
not
Let the dear memory be forgot,
OF him who could so truly write
The homely "Cotter's Saturday Night"
That gem alone should send his name
Down the retreating years to fame.
Who, worn with trouble, toll and care,
And seeing misfortune everywhere,
Can help but feel this truth forlorn.
That man, vain man was made to
mourn
Yet who e'er told that truth so well
AS him of whom today l tell?
He had his aults-but so have we.
For none from failings can be free:
But with all his faults we love him still
Whose words have power our hearts to
thrill.
But well we know he is above
The reach of enviOus men who love
To note the frailties Of the race,
Nor see one, slight, redeeming grace.
9 g %
His name is loved, and thus tonight
Scotland Will keep his memory bright
Nor does she celebrate alone,
For every land, in every zone,
Claims kindred with our bard, for he
Is the poet of al humanity
From lone Siberia's wastes of snow.
To far Australias island shore
Round which contending oceans roar
O er the wide sea, from pole to pole
Where crashing avalanches roll
Their frozen torrents, to the line
Where torrid suns refulgent shine
There we may go. and find where'er
Loves language trembles on the air
Some gentle heart, some noble mind
Which art may sway, but cannot bind
Remembers him whose gentle art
Can touch the most obdurate heart:
Whose songs are natures symphonies,
Borne far Ger continents and seas
From young America TO where
The Indian seas sleep mute as air
There fancy scars; there gratitude
Breathes prisons in solitude;
There love warns up the mantIing cheek.
And harmony is heard to speak
There hope. whose mysteries never fail.
AsrendS the mount or treads the vale.
While from the soul of sorrow flies
fhe thought of self-the meaner ties
And grateful memory fondly turns
TO bless the name of Robert Burns.
NORMAN b. DRESSER.
Salt Lake, January. 1897