* This lecture is printed from notes found among Colonel
Ingersoll's papers, but was not revised by him for
publication.
A facsimile of the original manuscript as written by Colonel Ingersoll
in the Burns' cottage at Ayr, August 19, 1878.
[Illustration: Burn's Manuscript]
We have met to-night to honor the memory of a poet—possibly the next to
the greatest that has ever written in our language. I would place one
above him, and only one--Shakespeare.
It may be well enough at the beginning to inquire, What is a poet? What
is poetry?
Every one has some idea of the poetic, and this idea is born of his
experience--of his education--of his surroundings.
There have been more nations than poets.
Many people suppose that poetry is a kind of art depending upon certain
rules, and that it is only necessary to find out these rules to be a
poet. But these rules have never been found. The great poet follows them
unconsciously. The great poet seems as unconscious as Nature, and the
product of the highest art seems to have been felt instead of thought.
The finest definition perhaps that has been given is this:
"As nature unconsciously produces that which appears to be the result
of consciousness, so the greatest artist consciously produces that which
appears the unconscious result."
Poetry must rest on the experience of men--the history of heart and
brain. It must sit by the fireside of the heart. It must have to do with
this world, with the place in which we live, with the men and women we
know, with their loves, their hopes, their fears and their joys.
After all, we care nothing about gods and goddesses, or folks with
wings.
The cloud-compelling Jupiters, the ox-eyed Junos, the feather-heeled
Mercurys, or the Minervas that leaped full-armed from the thick skull of
some imaginary god, are nothing to us. We know nothing of their fears or
loves, and for that reason, the poetry that deals with them, no matter
how ingenious it may be, can never touch the human heart.
I was taught that Milton was a wonderful poet, and above all others
sublime. I have read Milton once. Few have read him twice.
With splendid words, with magnificent mythological imagery, he musters
the heavenly militia--puts epaulets on the shoulders of God, and
describes the Devil as an artillery officer of the highest rank.
Then he describes the battles in which immortals undertake the
impossible task of killing each other.
Take this line:
"Flying with indefatigable wings over the vast abrupt."
This is called sublime, but what does it mean?
We have been taught that Dante was a wonderful poet.
He described with infinite minuteness the pangs and agonies endured by
the damned in the torture--dungeons of God.
The vicious twins of superstition--malignity and solemnity--struggle for
the mastery in his revengeful lines.
But there was one good thing about Dante: he had the courage, and what
might be called the religious democracy, to see a pope in hell.
That is something to be thankful for.
So, the sonnets of Petrarch are as unmeaning as the promises of
candidates. They are filled not with genuine passion, but with the
feelings that lovers are supposed to have.
Poetry cannot be written by rule; it is nota trade, or a profession. Let
the critics lay down the laws, and the true poet will violate them all.
By rule you can make skeletons, but you cannot clothe them with flesh,
put blood in their veins, thoughts in their eyes, and passions in their
hearts.
This can be done only by following the impulses of the heart, the winged
fancies of the brain--by wandering from paths and roads, keeping step
with the rhythmic ebb and flow of the throbbing blood.
In the olden time in Scotland, most of the so-called poetry was written
by pedagogues and parsons--gentlemen who found out what little they knew
of the living world by reading the dead languages--by studying epitaphs
in the cemeteries of literature.
They knew nothing of any life that they thought poetic. They kept as far
from the common people as they could. They wrote countless verses, but
no poems. They tried to put metaphysics, that is to say, Calvinism, in
poetry.
As a matter of fact, a Calvinist cannot be a poet. Calvinism takes all
the poetry out of the world.
If the existence of the Calvinistic, the Christian, hell could be
demonstrated, another poem never could be written. .
In those days they made poetry about geography, and the beauties of the
Scotch Kirk, and even about law.
The critics have always been looking for mistakes, not beauties--not for
the perfection of expression and feeling. They would object to the lark
and nightingale because they do not sing by note--to the clouds because
they are not square.
At one time it was thought that scenery, the grand in nature, made the
poet. We now know that the poet makes the scenery. Holland has produced
far more genius than the Alps. Where nature is prodigal--where the crags
tower above the clouds--man is overcome, or overawed. In England
and Scotland the hills are low, and there is nothing in the scenery
calculated to rouse poetic blood, and yet these countries have produced
the greatest literature of all time.
The truth is that poets and heroes make the scenery. The place where
man has died for man is grander than all the snow-crowned summits of the
world.
A poem is something like a mountain stream that flashes in light, then
lost in shadow, leaps with a kind of wild joy into the abyss, emerges
victorious, and winding runs amid meadows, lingers in quiet places,
holding within its breast the hills and vales and clouds--then running
by the cottage door, babbling of joy, and murmuring delight, then
sweeping on to join its old mother, the sea.
Thousands, millions of men live poems, but do not write them; but every
great poem has been lived.
I say to-night that every good and self-denying man, every one who lives
and labors for those he loves, for wife and child, is living a poem. The
loving mother rocking a cradle, singing the slumber song, lives a poem
pure and tender as the dawn; the man who bares his breast to shot and
shell lives a poem, and all the great men of the world, and all the
brave and loving women have been poets in action, whether they have
written one word or not. The poor woman of the tenement, sewing, blinded
by tears, lives a poem holier, it may be, than the fortunate can know.
The pioneers--the home builders, the heroes of toil, are all poets, and
their deeds are filled with the pathos and perfection of the highest
art.
But to-night we are going to talk of a poet--one who poured out his soul
in song. How does a country become great? By producing great poets. Why
is it that Scotland, when the roll of nations is called, can stand up
and proudly answer "here"? Because Robert Burns has lived. It is Robert
Burns that put Scotland in the front rank.
On the 25th of January, 1759, Robert Burns was born. William Burns,
a gardener, his father; Agnes Brown, his mother. He was born near the
little town of Ayr, in a little cottage made of mud and thatched
with straw. From the first, poverty was his portion,--"Poverty, the
half-sister of Death." The father struggled as best he could, but at
last overcome more by misfortunes than by disease, died in 1784, at the
age of 63. Robert attended school at Alloway Mill, and had been taught
a little by John Murdock, and some by his father. That was his
education--with this exception, that whenever nature produces a genius,
the old mother holds him close to her heart and whispers secrets to his
ears that others do not know.
He had spent most of his time working on a farm, raising very poor
crops, getting deeper and deeper into debt, until finally the death of
his father left him to struggle as best he might for himself.
In the year 1759, Scotland was emerging from the darkness and gloom of
Calvinism. The attention of the people had been drawn from the other
world, or rather from the other worlds, to the affairs of this. The
commercial spirit, the interests of trade, were winning men from the
discussion of predestination and the sacred decrees of God. Mechanics
and manufacturers were undermining theology. The influence of the clergy
was gradually diminishing, and the beggarly elements of this life were
beginning to attract the attention of the Scotch. The people at that
time were mostly poor. They had made but little progress in art and
science. They had been engaged for many years fighting for their
political or theological rights, or to destroy the rights of others.
They had great energy, great natural sense, and courage without limit,
and it may be well enough to add that they were as obstinate as brave.
Several countries have had a metaphysical peasantry. It is true of parts
of Switzerland about the time of Calvin. In Holland, after the people
had suffered all the cruelties that Spain could inflict, they began to
discuss as to foreordination and free will, and upon these questions
destroyed each other. The same is true of New England, and peculiarly
true of Scotland--a metaphysical peasantry--men who lived in mud houses
thatched with straw and discussed the motives of God and the means by
which the Infinite Being was to accomplish his ends.
For many years the Scotch had been ruled by the clergy. The power of
the Scotch preacher was unlimited. It so happened that the religion of
Scotland became synonymous with patriotism, and those who were fighting
Scotland were also fighting her religion. This drew priest and people
together; and the priest naturally took advantage of the situation. They
not only determined upon the policy to be pursued by the people, but
they went into every detail of life. And in this world there has
never been established a more odious tyranny or a more odious form of
government than that of the Scotch Kirk.
A few men had made themselves famous--David Hume, Adam Smith, Doctor
Hugh Blair, he of the grave, Beattie and Ramsay, Reid and Robertson--but
the great body of the people were orthodox to the last drop of their
blood. Nothing seemed to please them like attending church, like hearing
sermons. Before Communion Sabbath they frequently met on Friday, having
two or three sermons on that day, three or four on Saturday, more if
possible on Sunday, and wound up with a kind of gospel spree on Monday.
They loved it. I think it was Heinrich Heine who said, "It is not true,
it is not true that the damned in hell are compelled to hear all the
sermons preached on earth." He says this is not true. This shows that
there is some mercy even in hell. They were infinitely interested in
these questions.
And yet, the people were social, fond of games, of outdoor sports,
full of song and story, and no folks ever passed the cup with a happier
smile.
Sometimes I have thought that they were saved from the gloom of
Calvinism by the use of intoxicating liquors. It may be that John
Barleycorn redeemed the Scotch and saved them from the divine dyspepsia
of the Calvinistic creed. So, too, it may be that the Puritan was saved
by rum, and the Hollander by schnapps. Yet, in spite of the gloom of
the creed, in spite of the climate of mists and fogs, and the maniac
winters, the songs of Scotland are the sweetest and the tenderest in all
the world.
Robert Burns was a peasant--a ploughman--a poet. Why is it that millions
and millions of men and women love this man? He was a Scotchman, and all
the tendrils of his heart struck deep in Scotland's soil. He voiced the
ideals of the best and greatest of his race and blood. And yet he is
as dear to the citizens of this great Republic as to Scotia's sons and
daughters.
All great poetry has a national flavor. It tastes of the soil. No matter
how great it is, how wide, how universal, the flavor of locality is
never lost. Burns made common life beautiful. He idealized the sun-burnt
girls who worked in the fields. He put honest labor above titled
idleness. He made a cottage far more poetic than a palace. He painted
the simple joys and ecstasies and raptures of sincere love. He put
native sense above the polish of schools.
We love him because he was independent, sturdy, self-poised, social,
generous, susceptible, thrilled by a look, by a touch, full of pity,
carrying the sorrows of others in his heart, even those of
animals; hating to see anybody suffer, and lamenting the death of
everything--even of trees and flowers. We love him because he was a
natural democrat, and hated tyranny in every form.
We love him because he was always on the side of the people, feeling the
throb of progress.
Burns read but little, had but few books; had but a little of what
is called education; had only an outline of history, a little of
philosophy, in its highest sense. His library consisted of the _Life of
Hannibal_, the _History of Wallace_, Ray's _Wisdom of God_, Stackhouse's
_History of the Bible_; two or three plays of Shakespeare, Ferguson's
_Scottish Poems_, Pope's _Homer_, Shenstone, McKenzie's _Man of Feeling_
and Ossian.
Burns was a man of genius. He was like a spring--something that suggests
no labor.
A spring seems to be a perpetual free gift of nature. There is no
thought of toil. The water comes whispering to the pebbles without
effort. There is no machinery, no pipes, no pumps, no engines, no
water-works, nothing that suggests expense or trouble. So a natural
poet is, when compared with the educated, with the polished, with the
industrious.
Burns seems to have done everything without effort. His poems wrote
themselves. He was overflowing with sympathies, with suggestions, with
ideas, in every possible direction. There is no midnight oil. There is
nothing of the student--no suggestion of their having been re-written
or re-cast. There is in his heart a poetic April and May, and all the
poetic seeds burst into sudden life. In a moment the seed is a plant,
and the plant is in blossom, and the fruit is given to the world.
He looks at everything from a natural point of view; and he writes of
the men and women with whom he was acquainted. He cares nothing for
mythology, nothing for the legends of the Greeks and Romans. He draws
but little from history. Everything that he uses is within his reach,
and he knows it from centre to circumference. All his figures and
comparisons are perfectly natural. He does not endeavor to make angels
of fine ladies.
He takes the servant girls with whom he is acquainted, the dairy
maids that he knows. He puts wings upon them and makes the very angels
envious.
And yet this man, so natural, keeping his cheek so close to the
breast of nature, strangely enough thought that Pope and Churchill and
Shenstone and Thomson and Lyttelton and Beattie were great poets.
His first poem was addressed to Nellie Kilpatrick, daughter of the
blacksmith. He was in love with Ellison Begbie, offered her his heart
and was refused. She was a servant, working in a family and living on
the banks of the Cessnock. Jean Armour, his wife, was the daughter of a
tailor, and Highland Mary, a servant--a milk-maid.
He did not make women of goddesses, but he made goddesses of women.