Warren sheaf. [volume] (Warren, Marshall County, Minn.) 1880-current, 1901-06-06
THE AYRSHIRE PLOWMAN,

There have been. are now, and al
ways will be poets. with whose lives
it is not necessary that we should
have any acquaintance in order to full
~ enjoy cr understand their works.
On the other hand, there are those
poets Of whose lives and even their
inmost thoughts we must have a per-
feet knowledge that we may under
stand and appreciate their poetry to
any degree.
OF the first class is Shakespeare.
When we read Hamlet, King Lear or
Much Ado About Nothing, do we con.
tinually think Of Shakespeare? Do we
continually ask why he wrote this
passage or that? Why, this in in poe.
try; that in prose? No, indeed! His
characters live, move, and have their
being, in a world of their own, apart
from the din and smoke of earth, in
the world Of true poetic art Shakes
peare himself is lost to view so thor.
oughly that it is impossible to dis.
cover him in his works.
Of the second class is Robert Burns
In his songs the note of personalit
is ever present. Not to know and sym
pathiZe with his life is not to see the
hidden beauty of his song, which dur.
ing his lite was his companion. his
consolation, and after his death made
his Zone Of the few, the immortal
names, that were not born to die"
In a little clay cottage in Alloway
on the banks of the Doom, was born
! the bearer of that immortal name
and as time went by, more. lassies
and laddies came to bless the little
home, till at length, with the guidman
the guidwife and the bonnie BARNS
little spare room was left in the clay
biggin.
Though the home was humble and
the parents poor, William Burns, the
father, realized the value of an edu
cation, and as the advantages of the
country school were few, spent many
minutes, after the wearying toll OF
the day, in teaching his children. him
self.
So let us not object that Burns die
little. He did much when we consider
what odds he had to contend. If We
claim that his attainments were
small, let us remember that he ha(
to discover even his own materials
Carlyle says: "The metals he worked
in lay hid under the desert, where NJ
eye but his had guessed it's existence
and we may almost say that with his
own hand he had to construct the
tools for fashioning it* An edu
Gated man stands, as it were, in tht
midst Of boundless arsenal and mag
azine, surrounded by all the weapons
and engines which mans skill has
been able to devise from the earliest
time; and he works accordingly, will
"a strength borrowed from all pas
ages. How different is his state wht
stands on the outside Of that store
house and feels that it's gates mus
be stormed or remain forever closed
! against him. Burns stormed this store
house, and the result we know >"
EARLY in life, owing to the death Of
his father, and before he had received
anything of an education, Rober
Burns became the bread winner fol
his family. His sojourn at Irvine
while learning the fax dressing trade
was disastrous not only in the loss Of
his shop, through the carelessness o1
his riotous companions, but also tha1
which was far greater, the loss Of
morality and virtue. Had it not beer
for this beginning, what heights o1
glory might he not have reached. Bu1
he was not guided by the controlling
influence Of a great purpose. His eff
forts were spasmodic, the results o1
accidental circumstances: This great
soul wasted itself away in a hopeless
struggle with base entanglements
which coiled closer and closer around
him till only death opened to him ar
outlet.
His faults-the faults Of others
proved too much for him; and thai