Worcester morning daily spy., 1898-01-26

lonS ne walked by the rivers Ddnk at
Elisland, muttering and grooming to
himself, pausing to write thought or
verse, and before the sun had set, he
had completed the Tam o. Shanter,"
! the best days work done in Scotland,
says Alexander Smith, since Bruce
fought at Bannockburn.
AS one traces the relations of Burns
poetry to the scenery Of Scotland, he
will find the secret of his unique influ-
ence, and the reason of his command
| ing and increasing fame. In all his
poetry there is hardly a strain that
reaches the high spiritual level of Mil
ton-lover as he was of scenery. There
are none of the broad pictorial effects,
the gorgeous word-painting of Byron.
He hardly enters that myth-land OF
Scottish romance that so enchanted
Scott
He stands almost alone among all the
great poets of English literature, in his
Iidealization of common life and the COM
mon humanities of life. Other poets
sought to bring heaven down to earth,
but Burns sought to raise heaven to
earth. Milton sings of the gods and the
wars of heaven; Shakspere's dramas
are of courts and kings; Scott rehearses
the story of a vanished age, and the
songs of Tennyson are the dreams of
fair women, and the story Of princes.
In other poetry the splendor falls on
castle walls, but in Burns on the white
washed cottage walls, where common
life is born and reared. Wordsworth's
children come from heaven trailing
clouds of glory; the children Of Burns
play around the doors, and nestle by the
cottage fire. The fields of which he sang
were no fields of the cloth of gold, but
the common fields, where the mouse
makes its nest and the daisy grows. A
thousand battlehelds were unsung by
him, but the wounded hare did not
perish without the tribute of his tears.
His heart went out in sympathy with
universal mature, and into her blacklist
provinces he carries beauty. He is the
Interpreter of common nature for COM
mon men. A Scotch peasant life was
rude and hard, but Burns became the
poet of it, and 1t became idealized He
saw the nobility that dwells under the
straw roofs, and was able to see that
despite poverty, hard hands and human
frailty, "a mans man for a that.
This is why the whole world loves
Burns. Twenty-four thousand people
visited the home of Burns to 10000 that
visited the home of Shakspere. The
street in Dumfries, where he lived in
poverty, bears his name, and every
Scotchman is the world has pride that
the same blood runs in his veins as
flowed in the veins of Burns.
But Burns has wider country than
that of Scotland. He sung of liberty as
no poet had ever sung of it, and all lib
erty lovers are his country; he sung of
friendship and humanity, the honora-
bleness of daily toll the nobility of com
mon life wherever men are tempted
and have need of pity, wherever toilers
bend beneath their burdens and need
to feel brothers arm, and see before
a star of hope-there are the country
men and lovers of this lover of his kind
He had his frailtias, but they We're the
common frailties of his time. He had
a poets temperament and poets temp
tations; but he had a great, loving heart
for all the world, and he Interpreted and
sung the song of the worlds plain
heart, lifted the plowman's eyes from
the burrows to the hills, and gave a
vision to the burden bearers of the
world that made the yoke easy and the
burden light. We honor Scotland that
was his home, and its people, who have
made his songs part of their common
speech. We share their pride, because
we too have been the inheritors of his
blessings; and we gladly add our voices
of praise to the great chorus of graft
tude, that is going up tonight to the
name and fame of Bobby Burns.
After duet, "Huntingtower,' by Miss
Corea and Mr.. Townsend, the exercises
~
Lang Syne" IN unison.
During the evening the following letter
was read from Congressman Walker by
the POSTMASTER:
Washington, d. c., Jan. 10, 1898.
Mr.. f. A. Easton, POSTMASTER, Worces-
ter, Mass:
My Dear sir-I regret exceedingly that
am unable to accept the kind invitation of 4
the committee having in charge the cele-
bration of the 139th anniversary of the
birth of Robert Burns, to attend the recep-
ton and banquet to be held at the Bay
State House on January 25 1898.
/ am pleased to know that so many of
our distinguished citizens will assemble to
honor the memory of the poet. He was
not merely a writer In meter, but the sing
er of the thoughts and hopes and aspira-
tons of the common people like himself
His poems are songs; they sing them
selves. They breathe the atmosphere, of
have the strong pulse of a manly man,
who is worker with the sky for a can
opy.
Robert Burns ennobled the commonest
theme. The fragrance Of the flower that
he crushed beneath his foot goes on
through the years; the humber things of
creation he commended to the notice and
hXed forever in the memory of those who
might be forgetful that the creator had
some great purpose in every work of his
hand.
The faults this man had, however much
we may deplore them, were the faults Of
too generous and careless nature; but his
genius eclipses them, and time that tries
ali things truly, has written that his work
can never die Though / cannot be pres
ent at your celebration in person, l shall
join in spirit with my fellow-citizens of
worcester and their distinguished guests
in giving grateful remembrance to Robert
Burns.
Very truly yours,
Joseph H. Walker
The success of the occasion has been
largely due to the untiring efforts of Fer