Luath Kilmarnock Edition: Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect E-Book

Robert Burns

• Herausgeber: Luath Press
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect, was the first collection of poetry produced by Robert Burns. Published in Kilmarnock in July 1786 it has become known as The Kilmarnock Edition. The contents include 44 of Burns' best known poems including To a Louse, The Cotter's Saturday Night, To a Mouse, The Twa Dogs and To a Mountain Daisy. Released in 2009 to celebrate Burns' 250th birthday, The Luath Kilmarnock Edition brought this classic of Scottish literature back into print, after being unavailable for many years. New material includes an introduction by 'the man who played Burns' -author, actor and Burns expert -John Cairney, exploring Burns' life and work, especially the origins of The Kilmarnock Edition. Looking to the future of Burns in Scotland and the rest of the world, Clark McGinn, world-renowned Burns Supper speaker, provides an afterword that speaks to Burns' continuing legacy. Illustrated throughout with original line drawings by top political satirist Bob Dewar, The Luath Kilmarnock Edition makes a beautiful gift for any Burns enthusiast. "This special illustrated edition celebrates the 250th anniversary of the birth of Robert Burns, probably the world's favourite poet. Poems Cheifly in the Scottish Dialect, the only book of his poetry published in his short lifetime, is probably the most significant book ever published from Scotland. Kilmarnock saw that first edition of a young man's poems published in 1786 and Burns has not beeen out of print for a single day since. We are still reading, reciting and enjoying these poems... the writing, life and character of this Ayrshire ploughman inspire deep human emotion around the globe. - FROM THE AFTERWORD BY CLARK McGINN

Leseprobe

ROBERT BURNS was born in Alloway on 25 January 1759 and died in Dumfries aged 37 on 21 July 1796. He is Scotland’s National Poet and probably the world’s favourite poet, and wrote hundreds of poems and songs, mainly in Scots. He also collected folk songs from all over Scotland, and often revised them or based new work on them. At the age of 27 he publishedPoems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect, the only book of his poetry published during his short lifetime.

JOHN CAIRNEY, actor, writer, painter and lecturer, grew up in Glasgow. He became a household name when he played Robert Burns on the small screen in the 1960s, and became known as ‘the Face of Burns’. He has published many books on Burns and other subjects. He lives with his wife, the actress and writer Alannah O’Sullivan, in Glasgow.

CLARK McGINN was born and bred in Ayr and walked the same streets as Rabbie when growing up. From his first Burns Supper performance at Ayr Academy to an international speaking programme proposing the Immortal Memory in many countries every year, he is a well known after dinner speaker and writer (combined with a day job in a major UK bank). For the 250th anniversary in 2009 he is deeply honoured to have been asked to give the eulogy to Burns at the commemoration service at Poets’ Corner in Westminster Abbey.

BOB DEWAR was born in Edinburgh and published his first illustrations at the age of 16. He went on to ghost Dennis the Menace and to work onThe Scotsman. He has since illustrated many books, worked for many newspapers, held exhibitions and had caricatures hung in the House of Commons, among other places.

CONTEMPORARY CRITICAL RESPONSES TO THE KILMARNOCK EDITION*

* Robert Burns: The Criical Heriage, ed. Donald A. Low (Routledge, 1974)

There is a pathos and delicacy in his serious poems; a vein of wit and humour in those of a more festive turn which cannot be too much admired, nor too warmly approved; and I think I shall never open the book without feeling my astonishment renewed and increased.

THOMAS BLACKLOCK, poet, September 1786

The author is indeed a striking example of native genius bursting through the obscurity of poverty and the obstructions of laborious life... His observations on human characters are acute and sagacious, and his descriptions are lively and just. Of rustic pleasantry he has a rich fund; and some of his softer scenes are touched with inimitable delicacy.

Edinburgh Magazine, October 1786

He appears to be not only a keen satirist, but a man of great feeling and sensibility.

Letter by ‘ALLAN RAMSAY’,Edinburgh Evening Courant, 13 November 1786

... a genius of no ordinary rank... readers... will discover a high tone of feeling, a power and energy of expression...

HENRY MACKENZIE,Lounger, 9 December 1786

His simple strains, artless and unadorned, seem to flow without effort from the native feelings of the heart. They are always nervous, sometimes inelegant, often natural, simple and sublime... his verses are sometimes struck off with a delicacy, and artless simplicity, that charms like the bewitching though irregular touches of a Shakespear.

JAMES ANDERSON,Monthly Review, December 1786

... elegant, simple and pleasing.

New Annual Register, 1787

anatural, though not alegitimate, son of the muses.

JOHN LOGAN,English Review, February 1787

...we do not recollect to have ever met with a more signal instance of true and uncultivated genius, than in the author of these Poems.

Critical Review, May 1787

POEMS,

CHIEFLY IN THE SCOTTISH DIALECT,

BYROBERT BURNS.

Illustrations by BOB DEWAR,

with an Introduction by JOHN CAIRNEY,

and an Afterword by CLARK McGINN.

KILMARNOCK EDITION:

PUBLISHED BY THE LUATH PRESS.

MM,IX.

First published 1786: Subscriber Edition of 612 copies

The Luath Kilmarnock Edition first published 2009:

Subscriber Edition of 612 copies

ISBN (print) 978-1-906817-08-4

This edition 2009

ISBN (print) 978-1-906307-67-7

eBook 2013

ISBN (eBook): 978-1-909912-17-5

Design by Tom Bee

© Luath Press Ltd 2009

THE Simple Bard, unbroke by rules of Art,He pours the wild effusions of the heart:And if inspir’d, ’tis Nature’s pow’rs inspire;

Her’s all the melting thrill, and her’s the kindling fire.

ANONYMOUS

A NOTE FROM THE PUBLISHERS

All italicisation, capitalisation and elision from the original Kilmarnock Edition have been retained in this edition. No attempt has been made to correct or modernise spelling and punctuation from the original, though for the benefit of modern readers,fandffhave been replaced by s and ss.

CONTENTS

Preface to the 1786 Kilmarnock Edition

Introduction by John Cairney

The Twa Dogs, a Tale

Scotch Drink

The Author’s earnest cry and prayer, to the right honorable and honorable, the Scotch representatives in the House of Commons

The Holy Fair

Address to the Deil

The death and dying words of Poor Maillie

Poor Maillie’s Elegy

To J.S****

A Dream

The Vision

Halloween

The auld Farmer’s new-year-morning Salutationto his auld Mare, Maggy, on giving her the accustomed ripp of Corn to hansel in the new year

The Cotter’s Saturday night, inscribed to R.A. Esq;

To a Mouse, on turning her up in her Nest, with the Plough, November, 1785

Epistle to Davie, a brother Poet

The Lament, occasioned by the unfortunate issue of a friend’s amour

Despondency, an Ode

Man was made to mourn, a Dirge

Winter, a Dirge

A Prayer in the prospect of Death

To a Mountain-Daisy, on turning one down,with the Plough, in April, 1786

To Ruin

Epistle to a young Friend

On a Scotch Bard gone to the West Indies

A Dedication to G.H. Esq

To a Louse, on seeing one on a Lady’s bonnetat Church

Epistle to J.L*****k, an old Scotch Bard

——to the same

——to W.S *****n, Ochiltree

——to J.R******, enclosing some Poems

Song, It was upon a Lammas night

Song, Now westlin winds, and slaught’ring guns

Song, From thee, Eliza, I must go

The Farewell

Epitaphs and Epigrams

A Bard’s Epitaph

Afterword by Clark McGinn

Glossary

PREFACE

THE FOLLOWING TRIFLES are not the production of the Poet, who, with all the advantages of learned art, and perhaps amid the elegancies and idlenesses of upper life, looks down for a rural theme, with an eye to Theocrites or Virgil. To the Author of this, these and other celebrated names their contrymen are, in their original languages, ‘A fountain shut up, and a ‘book sealed.’ Unacquainted with the necessary requisites for commencing Poet by rule, he sings the sentiments and manners, he felt and saw in himself and his rustic compeers around him, in his and their native language. Though a Rhymer from his earliest years, at least from the earliest impulses of the softer passions, it was not till very lately, that the applause, perhaps the partiality, of Friendship, wakened his vanity so far as to make him think any thing of his was worth showing; and none of the following works were ever composed with a view to the press. To amuse himself with the little creations of his own fancy, amid the toil and fatigues of a laborious life; to transcribe the various feelings, the loves, the griefs, the hopes, the fears, in his own breast; to find some kind of counterpoise to the struggles of a world, always an alien scene, a task uncouth to the poetical mind; these were his motives for courting the Muses, and in these he found Poetry to be it’s own reward.

Now that he appears in the public character of an Author, he does it with fear and trembling. So dear is fame to the rhyming tribe, that even he, an obscure, nameless Bard, shrinks aghast, at the thought of being branded as ‘An impertinent blockhead, obtruding his nonsense on the world; and because he can make a shift to jingle a few doggerel, Scotch rhymes together, looks upon himself as a Poet of no small consequence forsooth.’

It is an observation of that celebrated Poet,* whose divine Elegies do honor to our language, our nation, and our species, that ‘Humility has depressed many a genius to a hermit, but never raised one to fame.’ If any Critic catches at the wordgenius, the Author tells him, once for all, that he certainly looks upon himself as possest of some poetic abilities, otherwise his publishing in the manner he has done, would be a manœuvre below the worst character, which, he hopes, his worst enemy will ever give him: but to the genius of a Ramsay, or the glorious dawnings of the poor, unfortunate Ferguson, he, with equal unaffected sincerity, declares, that, even in his highest pulse of vanity, he has not the most distant pretensions. These two justly admired Scotch Poets he has often had in his eye in the following pieces; but rather with a view to kindle at their flame, than for servile imitation.

* Shenstone

To his Subscribers, the Author returns his most sincere thanks. Not the mercenary bow over a counter, but the heart-throbbing gratitude of the Bard, conscious how much he is indebted to Benevolence and Friendship, for gratifying him, if he deserves it, in that dearest wish of every poetic bosom—to be distinguished. He begs his readers, particularly the Learned and the Polite, who may honor him with a perusal, that they will make every allowance for Education and Circumstances of Life: but, if after a fair, candid, and impartial criticism, he shall stand convicted of Dulness and Nonsense, let him be done by, as he would in that case do by others—let him be condemned, without mercy, to contempt and oblivion.

INTRODUCTION

THERE ARE SOME events in the Scottish Story which are considered significant by all Scots. The Battle of Bannockburn in 1314 and the Declaration of Arbroath in 1320 are two of the earlier dates in Scotland’s historical calendar, although most Scots today tactfully forget that the latter was addressed to the Pope of the time. More shameful dates from our past were the Darien Disaster of 1699 when the Scots colony in Panama was allowed to starve by the English fleet and the Union of Parliaments in 1707 when the same England bought Scotland at a bargain price for some pieces of gold. Scotland had to wait until 1928 for revenge when the Wembley Wizards thrashed England 5–1. Nearly 40 years later, the Scots of Hamilton sent young Winnie Ewing to Parliament as a Scottish Nationalistand, not long afterwards, Jimmy Reid and his fellow shipbuilders cocked a Clydebank snook at Downing Street and London rule. These were heady times for the re-awakened sense of Scottish identity, but one vital Scottish date remains obscure, and yet it’s as important to our sense of Scotland now as any of the above. I refer to 31 July 1786 which was the publication date of the first, and only, book of poems published by Robert Burns of Ayr.

It is surely unique in any country that a poet should take his place among the pantheon of national heroes, like the swordbearers, Bruce, Wallace and General Gordon, the explorers, Mungo Park and Livingstone, the great minds, Clerk Maxwell, Napier and Hume, the inventors, Simpson, Graham Bell and Logie Baird and the scorers of goals like R.S. McColl, Jimmy McGrory and Denis Law. Yet to Scots everywhere, those of Scots descent and those who wish they were Scots, Robert Burns speaks still for our status as a nation and for our individual dignity as part of a specific people. Burns never ever said that Scots were a superior race, anything but. However, he did hold that at our best we were equal to any. In his verse and song, his essential message was supra-national, truly inter-national. Robert Burns is global and his work touches all peoples. And whether we like it or not, he tells us to celebrate our oneness, for, as he insists, we are as fellow creatures under a common Maker, whatever we call Him – or Her.

Thanks to the efforts of his Masonic brethren in Ayrshire throughout 1785 and 1786, Burns first spoke to the world as a summer voice coming out of the sun to dazzle his fellow-Masons and local compatriots withPoems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect, 612 copies of which issued from John Wilson’s Print Shop at the Star Close on the corner of King Street, Kilmarnock. Rumour has it 618 copies were actually put out and the extra six given to Burns as author’s copies as he couldn’t afford to buy them. That may be, but it is on record that Gilbert Burns took orders at Mossgiel for 70 copies. The method of funding was by subscription and Burns had 96 sheets of proposals printed which announced ‘Scotch Poems by Robert Burns’ as a heading and left room for intending purchasers to append their names as a promise to buy. When friends had gathered enough names on paper, and the printing costs covered, only then did the selected poems go to John Wilson. Burns was lucky in his friends. One of whom, incidentally, the lawyer Robert Aiken, bought 145 to distribute among friends. Indeed, the whole print-run was bought out by ‘sons of old Killie, assembled by Willie’, as Burn’sMasonic Songof 1786 has it. These nine gentlemen were all members of the Kilmarnock Kilwinning Lodge under Major Will Parker. They were Tam Samson, Robert Muir, John Goldie, Gavin Turnbull, Baillie Greenshields and three medical doctors, Moore, Hamilton and Paterson. Poet Burns was made an honorary member of their lodge, being the first public gesture of approval he had been given and also the first time he had been called Poet. All Burnsians owe much to Freemasonry for the creating of Scotland’s national Bard.

And similarly to Kilmarnock, for it was in Ayrshire’s capital that the book that made his name first emerged, causing a minor earthquake, first at the parish level, then at district and county level until finally the reverberations were country-wide and the world beckoned. To this day, Kilmarnock remains the epicentre of that 18th century midsummer explosion that was this little book of 240 pages. The town remains the home of The Robert Burns World Federation Limited, founded in 1885 as the Burns Federation, with headquarters in the grounds of Dean Castle. This original link with the poet gives Kilmarnock the right to claim its place as the wellspring of the writer, Burns, and the hub from which all writing on him should spoke out around the rim of the world. Yet Burns himself was almost diffident, albeit grateful for the impact his couple of dozen uneven pieces had produced. However, the overall effect was sensational, and astounding for a young rural rhymer. As he said himself in his autobiographical letter to Dr Moore in 1787:

I weighed my productions as impartially as is in my power; I thought they had merit; and ’twas a delicious idea that I should be thought a clever fellow, even though it should never reach my ears, a poor negro driver, or perhaps a victim to that inhospitable clime gone to the world of the spirits. I can only say that as a pauvre inconnu, as I then was, I had as nearly as high opinion of myself and my works as I have at this moment... I was pretty sure my poems would meet with some applause, but at the worst, the roar of the Atlantic would drown the voice of censure, and the novelty of the Indian scenes make me forget neglect... My vanity was lighly gratified by the reception I got from the general publick, besides pocketing, all expenses deducted, near 20 pounds.

This was a decent sum, and his mention of it proves, that like all real writers, he wrote for money. The irony was that, had he stayed in Ayrshire, his landlord, Gavin Hamilton, was sure Burns could have sold another thousand copies had Wilson the printers rushed another printing through the presses, but Burns himself had other plans. He had only put out the first edition because he needed the money to emigrate, and the first thing he did with his book money was to pay nine guineas to James Brown, Insurance Broker, at Glasgow for passage in the brigantine theNancy, under Captain Andrew Smith, berthed at Greenock, waiting to sail for the island of Antigua in Jamaica on or about 10 August.

The prospect obsessed him at this time. It was part of his wild, unconsidered Scottish escape plan that would free him from barren fields and fertile women, and let him do or die under the exotic West Indian sun. He wanted to forget everything and this was a congenial oblivion. Or so he thought. It was the kind of life decision only a poet could make, and he was stuck with it, despite the success of the Kilmarnock Edition. Fortunately, two friends of his patron, Dr Douglas, a man and wife, had already travelled in Jamaica overland between Savannah and Port Antonio, where Burns was due to take up work, and warned him that to do that journey in the worst season would expose him to the risk of pleuritic fever in that climate and he would do better to wait and take theBellunder Captain John Cathcart which was going direct to Kingston from Greenock in September. So Burns heeded their advice, especially as the master, Captain Cathcart, was a good friend of Gavin Hamilton’s, so theNancysailed without him.

This delay allowed him to hear from Dr Blacklock in Edinburgh who suggested he should try for his second edition in Edinburgh. Edinburgh? It was almost as foreign to him as Jamaica. Why not? He had nothing to lose. So he let the second ship sail west without him, and, hiring a pony, he set off at dawn one November morning for the capital of Scotland. Nonetheless, he was keeping his options open and booked his third passage across the Atlantic Ocean. This time, it was on theRoselleunder Captain Hogg. He used what was left of his book money to pay William Sibbald and Company of Leith, where theRosellewaited to sail for the Windward Islands on 10 November. This time he hoped he might be third time lucky as an emigrant. Meantime, Lord Glencairn, yet another Mason, took him in hand and suddenly, every door in Edinburgh, including that of William Creech, the publisher, was opened to him. In no time, he was as popular in the gentry’s with-drawing rooms as the performing pig in the Grassmarket, and recited for his supper at the best tables in Edinburgh.But he wrote nothing new in the capital except ‘To A Haggis’ and a sweet little song, ‘A Rosebud by my Early Walk’, for a 12-year old girl. He hated his life among the literati and he hated himself for pandering to them. He knew he must get away or he’d never be his own man again. The matter was decided for him when Jean Armour was thrown into the Mauchilne street by her parents, he did the honorable thing and married her. Once again, Poet Burns, now publicly proclaimed Bard of All Scotland, missed the boat.

Sadly, this tale of three ships did not allow him to embrace full-time ‘quill-driving’ as he called it; which was all he had ever wanted. Instead, he waved Clarinda off to her husband in Jamaica and he settled in Dumfries into the morass of domestic responsibilities and the brain-numbing, debilitating routine of a day job with the Customs and Excise. In one final, defiant burst of poetic genius he produced ‘Tam o’ Shanter’ but, for the most part he gave himself over to the writing and rewriting of songs and the making of nine children, of whom only three survived to become dull adults. The Robert Burns Story ended in a whimper over an unpaid bill, his 37-year-old body ruined by a harsh, deprived boyhood and an excessive fame in early manhood. They gave him a splendid, military funeral which was inapt as it was tasteless.

The common people cried for him that day as the ruling classes turned away, leaving him as they thought to the anonymity of a pauper’s grave but they reckoned without Scotland’s love for this peasant polymath, a self-tutored autodidact of lyric genius, who was appreciated as a maker of songs but was and is still loved as a man. That’s what makes him a hero, but of the Scottish kind, where his courage is not because of who he was, but despite who he was.

He has left us a book as a wee minding, and it is with great Scottish pride and joy, I now invite you, the reader, to board THE KILMARNOCK EDITION, now so splendidly re-fitted by Luath Press as further evidence of his author-ship, and set sail in it with our hero on his timeless voyage to Parnassus.

And may he wave us off from the shore with his own words:

No doubt I shall have much to answer for, yet my philosophy was simple enough; whatever mitigates the woes or increases the happiness of others, that is my criterion of goodness; what injures society as a whole, or any one person in it, that is my measure of iniquity.

Everything that is in this book is contained in these five lines, but please read on...

Dr John Cairney

2009

THE TWA DOGS, A TALE

TWAS in that place o’ Scotland’s isle,That bears the name o’ auld king COIL,

Upon a bonie day in June,

When wearing thro’ the afternoon,

Twa Dogs, that were na thrang at hame,

Forgather’d ance upon a time.

The first I’ll name, they ca’d himCæsar,

Was keepet for His Honor’s pleasure;

His hair, his size, his mouth, his lugs,

Shew’d he was nane o’ Scotland’s dogs,

But whalpet some place far abroad,

Where sailors gang to fish for Cod.

His locked, letter’d, braw brass-collar

Shew’d him thegentlemanan’scholar;

But tho’ he was o’ high degree,

The fient a pride na pride had he,

But wad hae spent an hour caressan,

Ev’n wi’ a Tinkler-gipsey’smessan:

At Kirk or Market, Mill or Smiddie,

Nae tawtedtyke, tho’ e’er sae duddie,

But he wad stan’t, as glad to see him,

An’ stroan’t on stanes an’ hillocks wi’ him.

The tither was aploughman’s collie,

A rhyming, ranting, raving billie,

Wha for his friend an’ comrade had him,

And in his freaks hadLuathca’d him,

After some dog in *Highland sang,

Was made lang syne, lord knows how lang.

* Cuchullin’s dog in Ossian’s Fingal.

He was a gash an’ faithfu’tyke,

As ever lap a sheugh or dyke.

His honest, sonsie, baws’nt face,

Ay gat him friends in ilka place;

His breast was white, his towzie back,

Weel clad wi’ coat o’ glossy black;

His gawsie tail, wi’ upward curl,

Hung owre his hurdies wi’ a swirl.

Nae doubt but they were fain o’ ither,

An’ unco pack an’ thick thegither;

Wi’ social nose whyles snuff’d an’ snowket;

Whyles mice and modewurks they howket;

Whyles scour’d awa in lang excursion,

An’ worry’d ither in diversion;

Till tir’d at last wi’ mony a farce,

They set them down upon their arse,