The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1920-01-28
NATIONS TRIBUTE TO GENIUS OF ROBERT BURNS Great Scottish Poet Was a Man of the Common
 People. AMERICAS
 POETS GAVE HIM
 HIGHEST PRAISE Typified Man With All His Defeats And His
 Victories.

Immortal Burns! The peoples bard,
 And eke fair poesy's bonniest bairn, We pause our living fast and hard
 To place a stone upon your cairn.
 On January 25, 1759. or 161 years ago, a ''b1ast O Janwar' win :" blew gusty welcome on a world genius. He came on the wings of storm; he rode in the sun for swift moment: he bestried the tempeests of life and he departed in tragedy. He scaled the heights of feeling and he plunbed the depths of remorse and sorrow. He sang and he sobbed; he laughed and he cried; he railed and he cautioned; he loved and he hated in his songs and poems as he did in life with in tense sincerity and openness. If he sinned he was open and above board | about it, and was really sincere in | his sorrow. He was ourselves with | our virtues and our faults intensified | a hundred fold. He was one of us 1 refecting our own feelings and DOT trayinR our own hopes and desires. l And so we love him, this 'hardy son | of rustic toil," this sweet singer of Bonnie Scotland, the lad that twas | born in Kyle" Immortal Robert | Burns. Even as this season of his l birth returns, come the echoes of his l praises from a million gath erings, in ! every civilized land on the face of the | globe, and, too, in many an odd corner of uncfvilized lands where his rowing | countrymen have found a temporary resting place. There is not another poet, who has so stirred the heart-strings of the common people, that he has a period set aside for the g1oEi1cation of his l memory? This is itl His memory, his free bounding Independent spirit, speaking to us through his songs and poems, lives again renewed and re- | renewed in the hearts of his fellows. That he had his faults in the flesh | there is no denying; he was so natural in the whole being of him that he could not help being a sinner in the general use of the term. But If he was a sinner, he was in that very much like ourselves and there are 1 mighty few who can afford to criti- | cize, if they would be honest with | themselves. But as it is of his mem 1 ory we are thinking, 1t ds his spirit ! shining in his works that we see and would not to the test. Besides the test of time there is nothing more | severe and nothing more to be envied l LLdH LIl0 OpiIlOl O1 IIlOSG LII IIl6 SetIIS life's business. He stands pre- emil nent1y high in the opinion of British | poets, and we will seave the cream of American poets to speak for l themselves.
 | 'The Memory of Burns" cried | Emerson. 'T am afraid heaven and earth have taken too good care of it | to leave us anything to say. The west | winds are murmuring it. Open the 1 windows behind you and hearken to the incoming tide, what the waves say of 1t. The doves perching on the l caves of a stone chapel opposite may know something about it The Nom | ory of Burns-every mans every boys, every girls head carries snatches of his songs and they say them by heart; and what is strangest
 of all, never learned them from a book but from mouth to outh. They are the property and the solace of mankind."
 After paying one of the finest tri-
 butes to the genius of Burns, Dr. F. Newton cloJes thus:
 Long live the spirit of Robert Burns. May it grow and glow to the I iconfounding of all unkindness, all 1 injustice, all bitterness.
 "He haunts his native land AS an Hmm ortal Youth; his hand | Guides every plough. l Ills presence haunts this room tonight A form of mingled mist and light | From that far Coast.''
 His feet may be in the furrow, but the nobility of manhood is in his heart, on his lips the voice of Eternal melody, and in the face the light of
 the morning star. I give you the
 toast '"To the Immortal Memory of | Robert Burns" cannot refrain from | giving you the following poem in full, it is o beautiful and so true. It Is entitled t'The Songs of Burns" by Kelso Kelly:
 "'Tis a little land that claims his
 birth,
 But over the world wide. By old and young;
 l By old an1 young; In the, melting strains of the Scottish tongue,
 With hal1owed rnirth are his sweet
 songs sung
 At every Scots hreside.
 There's never land on the eartt's
 broad breast
 From Clyde to the furthest sea-
 But loves the sound
 Of his name renowned,
 And as oft as his natal day comes around
 Wet eyes in the West to the Doon's l green ground
 1 Look homeward wistfuny.
 There's never voice so sweet, so glad |, Floats over the lone sea-foam,
 As the woodland vile
 Of the Bard of Kyle, Whose notes can the nourner's grief beguiIe.
 Till eyes that are sad wear a welcome
 smile,
 At a glimpse of the hills of home"
 The following tributes to Burns from his American broth CT poets bear
 their own comme entary on the face of , them, the sincere homage of Ameri- can poetic Hterate:
 s'In smiles and tears, in sun and
 showers,
 The minstrel and the heather,
 The death1ess singer and the flowers