The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1901-10-06
TRIBUTES TO THE POET BURNS
Ingersolrs Eloquent Lines. Who Wrote +"
Grave of Burns?"

To the Editor: In letter to the Gen.
trail Presbyterian of July 81, 1901, Dr..
Jere Witherspoon. pastor of Grace St.
Presbyterian church, Richmond, Va.
writes:
within the room where Burns was
born, an exceptional honor is paid to an
American whose gifts were splendid,
though perverted to unworthy ends.
ION the cottage wall, framed in gilt. are
lines in the handwriting of Col. Ingersoll,
which pay to the poet a tribute surpassed
by none / ever read
Though Scotland boasts thousand
names
o. patriot. king and peer:
The noblest grandest of them all
Was loved and Graded here,
'Tis but a cottage rooted with straw,
A howell made of clay,
One door shuts out the snow and storm,
One window greets the day.
And yet | stand within this room,
And hold all thrones in scorn,
For here beneath this lowly thatch
Loves sweetest bard was born.
Within this humble hut / feel
Like one who clasps shrine,
When the glad lips at last have touched
The something deemed divine
And here the world through all tie
years.
AS long as day returns,
The tribute of it's love and tears
VIII pay to Robert Burns
l send this because every lover of
Burns does not read the Central Pres
byterian, and every lover should see it,
genius demand more?
s But the second and major reason why
/ write you is explained in what fol-
lows
Stuck with waters to the fyleaf of my
fathers old copy of Burns is the tribute
below.
On visit Che was a physician to an
old charity patient, in the Bowling
Mountain section OF Granville county, he
found on the floor of the hut a scrap of
newspaper containing the lines.
l have made several Intellectual efforts
to find who wrote them. My last appli
cation was to Senator Beck, of Kentucky
himself a Scotchman and a school fell
low TO the poets grandsons. AS the
Senator has been dead quite a while, you
perceive l have not been very persistent
of late. But the lines of Ingersoll have
so aroused me that | have re-opened the
quest, and send them t. you requesting
publication, with the hope they may
catch the eye of some lover of the Swan
of the NTH who can name the author.
Very truly yours,
R. G. RUSSELL.
THE GRAVE OF BURNS.
Is yODdpr LITTLE snowy dome
The sacred shrine--the silent tomb,
Where thinking strangers love to come
Where genius mourns,
The last, the solitary home
OF the poor Burns.
Yes, yes, that dome adorns thy bed,
Twas given by those who scarcely bread,
When living. gave thee-not a shed
To hide thy wants;
But now would Ger thy Wondering head
Build monuments.
Tie little spot is thne-and who
Shall turn thee from thy tenure now?
Thy lease is long, the landlord true,
Thy troubles cease;
The great possess no more than thou
From heavens lease.
Swan of the NTH, thy wing was light.
Thy plumes were whitest of the white,
But wild and hayward was thy flight
From wave to wave;
One course as thine, headstrong and
bright,
Even to thy grave.
Swan of the NTH, il aught in thee
Sullied thy Wilderness, none should see
The blemish-men should view like me
Thy life's short dream,
And let thy faults like Swans feet be
Sunk in the stream.