PART THREE POEMS OF DEMOCRACY AND BROTHER HOOD BURNS was a profound exponent of the great fundamental principles of Christ's teaching-the value of the individual as a basis for true human brotherhood; the dignity of man; freedom for the individual and for nations; and genuine democratic principles. He saw both sides of the relations between despotism and democracy. In lines written in a young lady's pocketbook, he says: he 'Deal freedom's sacred treasures free as air Till slave and despot be but things that were.' In the "Inscription on the Altar of Independence" the ideal man is one says "Who will not be nor have a slave." In the Toast to Admiral Rodney, he says:- In the Poem to the Dumfries Volunteers, he demands individual freedom, but strongly condemns "the Wretch who'd set the mob above the throne." "The wretch that wad a tyrant own, But, while we sing God save the King, He crystallized Christ's basis for democracy in "The Vision" in the imperishable sentence: "Preserve the dignity of man With soul erect." and in the illuminating lines from "A Man's a Man for a' That": "The rank is but the guinea stamp, The man's the gowd for a' that." He had no frenzied ideals of freedom, but wished to secure it by constitutional means. In "Man Was Made to Mourn," he asks: "If I'm designed you lordling's slave,— Why was an independent wish E'er planted in my mind?" Bruce's address to his soldiers at Bannockburn will live on through coming ages, as the bugle call of true freemen to stand ever for liberty, as the brave Scotchmen had to fight for it: DEMOCRACY AND BROTHERHOOD POEMS "By oppression's woes and pains; "Lay the proud usurper low; Burns asked the unanswered question: In his "Epistle to Rev. John Lapraik," he says: "But ye whom social pleasure charms, Whose hearts the tide of kindness warms, Who hold your being on the terms, 'Each aid the others,' Come to my bowl, come to my arms, He wrote a poem to Clarinda, when he presented her with two wine glasses, in which he said: "And fill them high with generous juice As generous as your mind, And pledge me in the generous toast In "The Tree of Liberty," he says: "Wi' plenty o' sic trees I trow The sword would help to mak' a plough The din o' war would cease, man. "Like brothers in a common cause Would gladden ev'ry isle, man." In the last verse of "A Man's a Man for a' That," he says: "Then let us pray that come it may, As come it will for a' that, That sense and worth o'er all the earth It's coming yet for a' that, That man to man the world o'er In a love letter to Allison Begbie, he wrote: "I grasp the whole of humanity in the arms. This showed a comprehensive understanding of Christ's highest teaching. A VISION PART I: A VISION As I stood by yon roofless tower, Where the wa' flower scents the dewy air, Where the howlet mourns in her ivy bower, And tells the midnight moon her care. The winds were laid, the air was still, The stream adown its hazelly path Was rushing by the ruined wa's, The cauld blae North was streaming forth By heedless chance I turned my eyes, 1 The River Nith. |