The man in hodden grey and rough top boots who
might be seen going out on dusky mornings from
his little farmstead of Ellisland near Dumfries.
[Illustration: Man on Horseback Leaving Farm]
So that the man who may be seen going out this dusky morning from his
little farmstead of Ellisland near Dumfries--the dark and taciturn man
in hodden grey and rough top boots--is not precisely a son of the soil.
He is a hard worker in the field by dint of necessity, but his strenuous
and impetuous mind is set upon other thoughts than the plough, as he
drives his share along the Nithsdale uplands. It is exactly the season
of the year that he delights in. "There is scarcely any earthly object,"
he has written, "which gives me more--I do not know if I should call
it pleasure, but something that exalts me, something that enraptures
me--than to walk in the sheltered side of a wood or high plantation on a
cloudy winter's day, and hear the stormy wind howling among the trees,
or raving over the plains.... I take a peculiar pleasure in the season
of winter, more than the rest of the year.... There is something that
raises the mind to a serious sublimity, favourable to everything great
and noble." And there is also something secretly akin to the poet's wild
and passionate soul. For this is not a happy man, but an embittered one,
and ready to "rail on Lady Fortune in good set terms." He takes the
storm-wind for an interpreter:
'The sweeping blast, the sky o'ercast,'
The joyless winter day,
Let others fear, to me more dear
Than all the pride of May:
The tempest's howl, it soothes my soul,
My griefs it seems to join;
The leafless trees my fancy please,
Their fate resembles mine!
Thou Power Supreme, whose mighty scheme
These woes of mine fulfil,
Here firm I rest; they must be best,
Because they are _Thy_ will!
Then all I want--O do Thou grant
This one request of mine!--
Since to _enjoy_ Thou dost deny,
Assist me to _resign_.
His brief meteoric reign of popularity in Edinburgh is now at an end:
from being a popular idol of society, caressed and feted, he has been
let to sink back into his native obscurity. And, being poignantly proud,
he suffers accordingly. The consciousness of genius burns within him,
a flame that devours rather than illumines: and he finds vent for his
bitterness, as he treads the clogging fallow, in the immortal lines:
_A Man's a Man for a' that._
Is there for honest poverty
That hings his head, an' a' that;
The coward-slave--we pass him by,
We dare be poor for a' that!
For a' that, an' a' that,
Our toils obscure an' a' that,
The rank is but the guinea's stamp,
The Man's the gowd for a' that.
What though on hamely fare we dine,
Wear hoddin grey, an' a' that;
Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine,
A Man's a Man for a' that,
For a' that, an' a' that,
Their tinsel show an' a' that;
The honest man, tho' e'er sae poor,
Is king o' men for a' that;
* * * * *
A prince can mak a belted knight,
A marquis, duke, an' a' that;
But an honest man's aboon his might,
Gude faith, he mauna fa' that!
For a' that, an' a' that,
Their dignities an' a' that;
The pith o' sense, an' pride o' worth,
Are higher rank than a' that.
Then let us pray that come it may
(As come it will for a' that),
That Sense and Worth, o'er a' the earth,
Shall bear the gree an' a' that,
For a' that, an' a' that;
It's coming yet for a' that,
That man to man, the world o'er,
Shall brothers be for a' that.
Presently, however, the sweet influences of the clear air, the pleasant
smell of upturned earth, the wholesome sight and sounds of morning, soothe
the poet's rugged spirit: he becomes attuned to the calmer present, and
forgetful of the feverish past. Burns has never been given to depicting
the shows and forms of nature for their own sake: he only uses them as a
stage for the setting of a central human interest. In short, he "cares
little," it has been said, "for the natural picturesqueness in itself:
the moral picturesqueness touches him more nearly." And all sentient
life is dear to him--not human life alone. Hence, one sees him wince and
shrink, as his ploughshare destroys the daisy.
_Painting by Dudley Hardy._