In ploughman phrase, God send you speed Still daily to grow wiser; And may ye better reck the rede Than ever did th' adviser! The general level of the rhyming letters of Burns is astonishingly high. They bear, as such compositions should, the impression of free spontaneity, and indeed often read like sheer improvisations. Yet they are sprinkled with admirable stanzas of natural description, shrewd criticism, delightful humor, and are pervaded by a delicate tactfulness possible only to a man with a genius for friendship. They are usually written in the favorite six-line stanza, the meter that flowed most easily from his pen, and in language are the richest vernacular. His ambition to be "literary" seldom brings in its jarring notes here, and indeed at times he seems to avenge himself on this besetting sin by a very individual jocoseness toward the mythological figures that intrude into his more serious efforts. His Muse is the special victim. Instead of the conventional draped figure she becomes a "tapetless, ramfeezl'd hizzie," "saft at best an' something lazy;" she is a "thowless jad;" or she is dethroned altogether: heed the advice gently collected by his editors need little discussion. They not infrequently exhibit the less generous sides of his character, and but seldom demand rereading on account of their neatness or felicity or energy. One may be given as an example: CHAPTER V DESCRIPTIVE AND NARRATIVE POETRY HE "world of Scotch drink, Scotch man ners, and Scotch religion" was not, Matthew Arnold insisted, a beautiful world, and it was, he held, a disadvantage to Burns that he had not a beautiful world to deal with. This famous dictum is a standing challenge to any critic who regards Burns as a creator of beauty. It is true that when Burns took this world at its apparent worst, when Scotch drink meant bestial drunkenness, when Scotch manners meant shameless indecency, when Scotch religion meant blasphemous defiance, he created The Jolly Beggars, which the same critic found a "splendid and puissant production." We must conclude, then, that sufficient genius can sublimate even a hideously sordid world into a superb work of art, which is presumably beautiful. But the verdict passed on the Scottish world of Burns is not to be taken without scrutiny. A review of those poems of Burns that are primarily descriptive will recall to us the chief features of that world. Let us begin with The Cotter's Saturday Night, Burns's tribute to his father's house. Let us discard the introductory stanza of dedication, as not organically a part of the poem. The scene is set in a gray November landscape. The tired laborer is shown returning to his cottage, no touch of idealization being added to the picture of physical weariness save what comes from the feeling for home and wife and children. Then follow the gathering of the older sons and daughter, the telling of the experiences of the week, and the advice of the father. The daughter's suitor arrives, and the girl's consciousness as well as the lover's shyness are delicately rendered. Two stanzas in English moralize the situation, and for our present purpose may be ignored. The supper of porridge and milk and a bit of cheese is followed by a reverent account of family prayers, the father leading, the family joining in the singing of the psalm. And as they part for the night, the poet is carried away |