Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

BURNS.

Quivering with strength, from earth he springs;
Defiant shouts his strange voice rings.
Gazing afar, like some lone tower,
His nostrils panting restless power,
His big eyes darting eager fire,
With rustic hand he strikes his lyre.

From the long sleep, so dreamless slept,
Scotland, like a roused laggard, leapt.
Rolls the clear tide of a new song
Through her heart's channels, void so long,
High swelling now, with lively beat,
To sounds so earnest, stirring, sweet.

With quickened pulse each bosom hears,
In tones that shift from mirth to tears,
And where, too, clarion notes are pealed,
Its inmost feeling bright revealed.
A nation's face, thus freshly wrought,
Beams with a smile of joyful thought.

Few years had passed since first was heard
That fiery heart's awakening word;
Its mighty throb, that warm life sent
To million hearts, and with them blent
In rapturous unison, is still;
Tranquil so soon in Death's pale chill.

Wasted; by soul-sprung griefs outworn;
By proud heart-struggles inly torn;
Disconsolate, despairing, crushed;
Before his time in misery hushed;
Great Burns went early 'mongst the dead,
His eye still gleaming thoughts unsaid.

Could he have had but half his due,
Had half was felt and done been true,
His generous soul had then been soothed,
And timelier his last pillow smoothed.
Traduced, banned, poor, he died heart-broken,—
The noblest Scot that e'er has spoken.

He whose large will, if matched with power,
Had rained all gifts in ceaseless shower,
Who did give gifts but by those given
Endowed to bless the earth from Heaven,—
Thoughts to enrich all time to come,—
Earned his poor bread by gauging rum.

A noble man, divinely strung
For all the virtues he has sung,
Finds wrenched by lies into divorce
From good, man's pith, his feelings force;
Is driven to the tavern's stench,
His brotherly yearnings there to quench.

Instead of honor, condescension;
Instead of peace, hot, coarse contention;
'Stead of high work fit for great souls,
He had the low, slow toil of moles;
A victim of the falsehoods strong,
That make of men a scrambling throng.

Passions in him were lashed to madness,
That might have been a well of gladness;
Sources of joy turned into sadness,
His very goodness into badness:
A strong man bound in the world's lies
And multiform hypocrisies.