, told him by one
Jenny Wilson, an old woman who lived in the family. His ear was full of
ancient Scottish tunes, and as soon as he fell in love he began to make
poetry as naturally as a bird sings. He composed his verses while
following the plow or working in the stack-yard; or, at evening,
balancing on two legs of his chair and watching the light of a peat fire
play over the reeky walls of the cottage. Burns's love songs are in many
keys, ranging from strains of the most pure and exalted passion, like
_Ae Fond Kiss_ and _To Mary in Heaven_, to such loose ditties as _When
Januar Winds_, and _Green Grow the Rashes O_.
Burns liked a glass almost as well as a lass, and at Mauchline, where
he carried on a farm with his brother Gilbert, after their father's
death, he began to seek a questionable relief from the pressure of daily
toil and unkind fates, in the convivialities of the tavern. There, among
the wits of the Mauchline Club, farmers' sons, shepherds from the
uplands, and the smugglers who swarmed over the west coast, he would
discuss politics and farming, recite his verses, and join in the singing
and ranting, while
Bousin o'er the nappy
And gettin' fou and unco happy.
To these experiences we owe not only those excellent drinking songs,
_John Barleycorn_ and _Willie Brewed a Peck o' Maut_, but the headlong
fun of _Tam O'Shanter_, the visions, grotesquely terrible, of _Death and
Dr.
Pages:
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236