Thursday, May 25, 2006

Toast to the Lassies

Robert Burns is often referred to as the immortal bard. Many profess to have never heard of him and yet sing his song "Auld Lang Sine" every New Year at midnight.

Being Scots myself I like to get to dress in my kilt. Go to the annual memorial "Burns Supper" held in January of each year by a Burns club in Dallas that I am a member of and on occasion when so requested by the committee give one of the speeches.

My favorite speech to give at the Burns supper is the toast to the lassies. Listed below is the last "lassies speech" that I gave in 2004. I trust that the reader will understand the Lalands dialect which comes from the lowlands of Scotland and as explained in the speech is the language the poetry was written in by Robert Burns.

unfortunately the emphasis and tone in which the speech was given is obviously lost in simply reading the written word of the speech. The bold lines may represent a memory jogger, a pause for effect, a voice inflection or an emphasis but I hope that the reader will find it interesting enough to be encouraged to either read some of Burns poetry or attend a supper in their local area.

Toast to the Lassies

In 1996 I stood by a gravesite in Scotland of a lady I never met. She had died many years before I was born. Her name was Agnes Brown of Kirkoswald, wife of William Burns and the mother of Robert Burns. As I stood there I thought of another mother called Mary who at the birth of her son the bible simply says "but Mary kept all these things in her heart" As I stood there I wondered what thoughts of her son did Agnes Burns keep in her heart?

Married to William Burns just 12 years after the 1745 Jacobite rebellion against the Crown we know very little about her except two crucial things, being poor she spoke in the old Scottish tongue called Lowlands or Lalands and she loved to sing old Scots songs to her children as they worked together in the field. Robert her eldest wrote his poetry in the old Scottish dialect in fond memory of his mother's singing.

Robert born on the 25th of January 1759 just two years after his parents marriage was influenced greatly by two women growing up, his mother and her cousin Betty Davidson who with their many stories of the local countryside and its folklore instilled in him a love of his Scottish heritage, pride in his humble beginnings and the seeds of his poetic future. Roberts mum and dad sacrificed to have him and his brother Gilbert educated in English by a private tutor named John Murdoch and so Robert easily wrote in both languages. English and Scots.

Burns was a man of simple tastes but also a complex individual. My role tonight ladies and gentlemen is to amaze you with the fact that he wrote hundreds of poems and songs by candlelight while being pursued by women. Pursued? Yes pursued. After all we are talking of a time when the bard would have to walk everywhere he went and if reality matches legend he walked a lot . . . .from bonnie hillside to bonnie hillside or perhaps I should in all modesty say from bonnie bush to bonnie bush.

Burns good friend, Maria Riddell, wrote of Robert in her memoirs that:

"None certainly ever outshone Burns in the charms – the sorcery I would almost call it, of fascinating conversation, the spontaneous eloquence of social argument, or the unstudied poignancy of brilliant repartee; nor was any man, I believe, ever gifted with a larger portion of the vivida vis amimi"

Now ladies I am sure that I do not need to interpret that for you? You have all seen a portion of the vivida vis amimi . . . . how large though I cannot say. I do know though that Maria and the many loves of Robert Burns would probably argue that not everything is bigger in Texas.

Please remember ladies and gentlemen that we are talking of a time before the automobile, the cell phone, radio and television. No fancy restaurants or shopping mall in Robert's time, no movie or rock stars just authors and poets. Robert was a poet and a local celebrity. Articulate, eloquent and handsome and don't forget ladies gifted with a large vivida vis amimi. The poor man got no rest from those ever chasing women who came into and out of his life to the tune of 16 children that we know of.

Burns never attended church on a regular basis, which is probably why he did not exactly obey the commandment that says thou shall not commit adultery. In his possibly biographical poem "Epitaph to a wag in Mauchline" he writes;

Lament him, Mauchlin husbands a'
He often did assist ye;
For if ye staid hale weeks gone,
Yer wives, they never had miss'd ye

Ye Maughlin Bairns, as on ye pass,
To school with hand the gither
O tread ye lightly on his grass,
Perhaps he was your father.

Many people criticize Burns for his womanizing and yet he was not alone between the sheets as all his offspring testify. Robert though new true love and that was with Jean Armour. We know that because he kept going back to her (and she kept accepting him).

Robert was saddened that Jean Armour's father would not allow her to marry him and when her family shipped her off to relatives living in Paisley to have the twins she was carrying he felt that she had abandoned him. He of course remembered that old adage that nothing replaces an old love like a new one and so he immediately took solace with Mary Campbell, known in his poetry, as Highland Mary.

It would seem in Robert's time a lack of day planners, computers and calendars tended to make the many women in his life seem to overlap. One thing was sure though Mother Nature kept score and by her calendar babies were born to different women just days apart. Perhaps Robert just got a little confused over old loves and new loves and on what bonnie hillside he was meant to be walking on which day and with whom.

On December 27, 1791 he wrote a memorial to his final parting with Clarinda It is without doubt written from the soul of the man. It is simply titled Ae fond kiss.

Ae fond kiss and then we sever!
Ae fareweel, alas for ever!
Deep in heart-wrung tears I'll pledge thee,
Warring sighs and groans I'll wage thee.
Who shall say that fortune grieves him
While the star of hope she leaves him?
Me, nae cheerfu' twinkle lights me,
Dark despair around benights me.

I'll ne'er blame my partial fancy,
Naething could resist my Nancy,
But to see her was to love her,
Love but her, and love for ever,
Had we never lovd say kindly,
Had we never lov'd sae blindly,
Never met or never parted,
We had ne'er been broken hearted.

Very touching and very romantic as are these words he wrote to Jean Armour,

Of a the airts the wind can blaw,
I dearly like the West,
For there the bonnie lassie lives,
The lassie I lo'e best,
There wild woods grow, and rivers row,
And monie a hill between,
But day and night my fancy's flight is ever with my Jean.

I like to think that Ae Fond Kiss would never have been published without Jean's knowledge and blessing.

Women were a prime inspiration to Robert Burns and brought out the romantic in him. I think the most beautiful poem and song ever written about the love between a man and a woman is his poem red red rose.

O, my luv;s like a red, red rose,
That's newly sprung in June:
My luve's like a melodie,
That's sweetly play'd in tune.

So fair thou art, my bonnie lass,
So deep in love am I:
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a' the seas gang dry.

Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi' the sun,
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
While the sands of life shall run.

And fare thee weel, my only luve,
And fare thee weel awhile,
And I will come again, my luve,
Tho' it were ten thousand mile.

Burns first motivational inspiration was a young lady named Nellie Kirkpatrick, the Blacksmiths daughter, who inspired Burns' first song. Robert used it to win Nell's affections away from a fellow suitor of her attention. The song titled Handsome Nell lacks the warmth and feelings of red red rose but remember he was only fifteen when he wrote it.

O, once I lu'd a bonnie lass,
An aye I love her still,
An' whilst that virtue warms my breast,
I'll love my handsome Nell
She dresses aye sae clean and neat,
Baith decent and genteel;
And there's something in her gait
Gears ony dress look weel.

Was Robert Burns only interested in beautiful women not at all by the time he had reached the ripe old age of seventeen he knew what was important in a lassie . . . her mind! He writes of Alison Begbie in his poem On Cassrock Banks.

But it's not her air, her form, her face,
Tho' matching beauty's fabled queen,
Tis the mind that shines in ev'ry grace,
An' chiefly in rogueish een.

Or as his friends at the pub would no doubt say in later years. Och aye sure right Rab! A bright intellectual mind was the first thing ye noticed. It wasn't her big t' . . . Sure Rab nae doubt at a' . We believe ye. . Unfortunately for the immortal bard Miss Begbie was intelligent enough not to believe him either and to reject him.

Henpecked husbands, rejected ladies, hypocritical churchmen, lords and ladies, ghosts and goblins, the devil and his scary band, common folk and the beautiful Scottish countryside can all be found in the poetry of Robert Burns. But of all he wrote and it was vast the one thing that immerges is that though he wore many hats and played many roles during his life, poet, father, husband, friend, brother, nationalist, drunkard, cad, compassionate human being, bad boy, celebrity, brilliant humanist whatever term you wish to use when you consider his life after you read his work you have to know that he loved Scotland, he loved the common folk, he loved his children, and he loved Mrs Jean Burns and yes he loved the lassies too but above them all he loved God and his Mother.

A mother's heart my dad told me should never be broken. It is the most precious gift a man is given while on earth. As I stood by the grave of Agnes Burns that day I think in her heart she kept this thought. For all and whatever my son is I am proud of him. And in recognition of that lady's son I ask the gentlemen to be upstanding and to lift their glasses in a toast to the lady by their side and say to the lassies . . . .cheers!

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