Six Centuries of English Poetry Part 14

Robert Burns.

THE COTTER'S{1} SAt.u.r.dAY NIGHT.

INSCRIBED TO R. AIKEN, ESQ.{2}

Let not Ambition mock their useful toil, Their homely joys, and destiny obscure; Nor Grandeur hear, with a disdainful smile, The short but simple annals of the Poor.{3}--_Gray._

My loved, my honored, much respected friend!

No mercenary bard his homage pays; With honest pride, I scorn each selfish end, My dearest meed, a friend's esteem and praise: To you I sing, in simple Scottish lays,{4} The lowly train{5} in life's sequestered scene; The native feelings strong, the guileless ways; What Aiken in a cottage would have been; Ah! though his worth unknown, far happier there I ween.

November chill blaws loud wi' angry sugh;{6} The short'ning winter-day is near a close; The miry beasts retreating frae the pleugh; The black'ning trains o' craws to their repose; The toil-worn Cotter frae his labor goes,-- This night his weekly moil is at an end,-- Collects his spades, his mattocks, and his hoes, Hoping the morn in ease and rest to spend, And weary, o'er the moor, his course does hameward bend.{7}

At length his lonely cot appears in view, Beneath the shelter of an aged tree; Th' expectant wee things toddlin', stacher thro'

To meet their dad, wi' flichterin noise an' glee.

His wee bit ingle, blinkin' bonnily, His clean hearth-stane, his thriftie wine's smile, The lisping infant prattling on his knee, Does a' his weary carking cares beguile, An' makes him quite forget his labor an' his toil.{8}

Belyve, the elder bairns{9} come drapping in, At service out, amang the farmers roun'; Some ca'{10} the pleugh, some herd, some tentie rin A cannie errand to a neibor{11} town: Their eldest hope, their Jenny, woman grown, In youthfu' bloom, love sparkling in her e'e, Comes hame, perhaps, to shew a braw new gown, Or deposit{12} her sair-won penny-fee,{13} To help her parents dear, if they in hards.h.i.+p be.

Wi' joy unfeigned, brothers and sisters meet, An' each for other's welfare kindly spiers: The social hours, swift-winged, unnoticed fleet; Each tells the uncos that he sees or hears; The parents, partial, eye their hopeful years, Antic.i.p.ation forward points the view.

The mother wi' her needle an' her shears, Gars auld claes look amaist as weel's the new; The father mixes a' wi' admonition due.

Their master's and their mistress's command, The younkers a' are warned to obey; And mind their labors wi' an eydent hand, And ne'er, tho' out o' sight, to jauk or play: "And, oh! be sure to fear the Lord alway, And mind your duty, duly, morn and night!

Lest in temptation's path ye gang astray, Implore His counsel and a.s.sisting might: They never sought in vain that sought the Lord aright!"{14}

But, hark! a rap comes gently to the door; Jenny, wha kens the meaning o' the same, Tells how a neibor lad came o'er the moor, To do some errands, and convoy her hame.

The wily mother sees the conscious flame Sparkle in Jenny's e'e, and flush her cheek; Wi' heart-struck anxious care inquires his name, While Jenny hafflins is afraid to speak; Weel pleased the mother hears, it's nae wild worthless rake.

Wi' kindly welcome Jenny brings him ben;{15} A strappin' youth; he takes the mother's eye; Blythe Jenny sees the visit's no ill ta'en; The father cracks of horses, pleughs, and kye.{16} The youngster's artless heart o'erflows wi' joy, But, blate and lathefu', scarce can weel behave; The mother, wi' a woman's wiles, can spy What makes the youth sae bashfu' an' sae grave; Weel pleased to think her bairn's respected like the lave.

O happy love! where love like this is found!

O heart-felt raptures! bliss beyond compare!

I've paced much this weary, mortal round, And sage experience bids me this declare:-- If Heaven a draught of heavenly pleasure spare, One cordial in this melancholy vale, 'Tis when a youthful, loving, modest pair, In other's arms breathe out the tender tale, Beneath the milk-white thorn that scents the evening gale!

Is there, in human form, that bears a heart, A wretch, a villain, lost to love and truth, That can, with studied, sly, ensnaring art, Betray sweet Jenny's unsuspecting youth?

Curse on his perjured arts! dissembling smooth!

Are honor, virtue, conscience, all exiled?

Is there no pity, no relenting ruth, Points to the parents fondling o'er their child?

Then paints the ruined maid, and their distraction wild!

But now the supper crowns their simple board,-- The halesome parritch, chief o' Scotia's food: The sowpe their only hawkie{17} does afford, That 'yont the hallan snugly chows her cood; The dame brings forth in complimental mood, To grace the lad, her weel-hained kebbuck, fell, An' aft he's prest, an' aft he ca's it guid; The frugal wifie, garrulous, will tell How 'twas a towmond auld, sin' lint was i' the bell.{18}

The cheerfu' supper done, wi' serious face, They, round the ingle, form a circle wide; The sire turns o'er, wi' patriarchal grace, The big ha'-Bible,{19} ance his father's pride; His bonnet{20} rev'rently is laid aside, His lyart haffets wearing thin an' bare; Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide, He wales a portion with judicious care; And "Let us wors.h.i.+p G.o.d!" he says, with solemn air.

They chant their artless notes in simple guise; They tune their hearts, by far the n.o.blest aim: Perhaps "Dundee's" wild warbling measures rise, Or plaintive "Martyrs," worthy of the name, Or n.o.ble "Elgin" beets{21} the heavenward flame, The sweetest far of Scotia's holy lays: Compared with these, Italian trills are tame, The tickled ears no heart-felt raptures raise; Nae unison hae they with our Creator's praise.

The priest-like father reads the sacred page, How Abram was the friend of G.o.d on high; Or Moses bade eternal warfare wage With Amalek's ungracious progeny; Or how the royal bard did groaning lie Beneath the stroke of Heaven's avenging ire; Or Job's pathetic plaint, and wailing cry; Or rapt Isaiah's wild, seraphic fire; Or other holy seers that tune the sacred lyre.

Perhaps the Christian volume is the theme, How guiltless blood for guilty man was shed; How He, who bore in Heaven the second name, Had not on earth whereon to lay His head: How His first followers and servants sped; The precepts sage they wrote to many a land: How he, who lone in Patmos banished, Saw in the sun a mighty angel stand; And heard great Babylon's doom p.r.o.nounced by Heaven's command.

Then kneeling down, to Heaven's Eternal King, The saint, the father, and the husband prays: Hope "springs exulting on triumphant wing,"{22} That thus they all shall meet in future days: There ever bask in uncreated rays, No more to sigh, or shed the bitter tear, Together hymning their Creator's praise, In such society, yet still more dear; While circling time moves round in an eternal sphere.

Compared with this, how poor Religion's pride, In all the pomp of method and of art, When men display to congregations wide Devotion's every grace, except the heart!

The Power, incensed, the pageant will desert, The pompous strain, the sacerdotal stole{23}; But, haply, in some cottage far apart, May hear, well pleased, the language of the soul; And in His book of life the inmates poor enroll.

Then homeward all take off their several way; The youngling cottagers retire to rest: The parent-pair their secret homage pay, And proffer up to Heaven the warm request, That He, who stills the raven's clamorous nest, And decks the lily fair in flowery pride, Would, in the way His wisdom sees the best, For them and for their little ones provide; But, chiefly, in their hearts with grace divine preside.

From scenes like these old Scotia's grandeur springs, That makes her loved at home, revered abroad: Princes and lords are but the breath of kings; "An honest man's the n.o.blest work of G.o.d:"{24} And certes, in fair virtue's heavenly road, The cottage leaves the palace far behind; What is a lordling's pomp?--a c.u.mbrous load, Disguising oft the wretch of human kind, Studied in arts of h.e.l.l, in wickedness refined!

O Scotia! my dear, my native soil!

For whom my warmest wish to Heaven is sent, Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil Be blest with health, and peace, and sweet content!

And, oh, may Heaven their simple lives prevent From luxury's contagion, weak and vile!

Then, howe'er crowns and coronets be rent, A virtuous populace may rise the while, And stand a wall of fire around their much-loved isle.

O Thou! who poured the patriotic tide That streamed thro' Wallace's{25} undaunted heart, Who dared to n.o.bly stem tyrannic pride, Or n.o.bly die, the second glorious part, (The patriot's G.o.d peculiarly Thou art, His friend, inspirer, guardian, and reward!) O never, never, Scotia's realm desert; But still the patriot, and the patriot-bard, In bright succession raise, her ornament and guard!

NOTES.

This poem, composed in 1785, is written partly in the Scottish dialect, partly in English. The livelier pa.s.sages are in the poet's vernacular; the loftier or more solemn parts in the language of books. This distinction was doubtless made because Burns disliked to treat his higher themes in a merely colloquial manner, fearing to belittle them by so doing. The household described was probably that of the poet's own father; it was at least a typical Scotch peasant's household, with which no one was more familiar. Gilbert Burns, in a letter to Dr. Currie, says: "Although the 'Cotter' in the Sat.u.r.day Night, is an exact copy of my father in his manners, his family devotions, and exhortations, yet the other parts of the description do not apply to our family. None of us ever went 'At service out amang the neibors roun'.' Instead of our depositing our 'sair-won penny-fee' with our parents, my father labored hard, and lived with the most rigid economy, that he might be able to keep his children at home."

The influence of Gray and Goldsmith is very apparent in more than one pa.s.sage in this poem.

"Robert had frequently remarked to me," said his brother, "that there was something particularly venerable in the phrase, 'Let us wors.h.i.+p G.o.d,' used by a decent, sober head of a family introducing family wors.h.i.+p. To this sentiment of the author, the world is indebted for 'The Cotter's Sat.u.r.day Night.' The hint of the plan and t.i.tle of the poem is taken from Ferguson's 'Farmer's Ingle.'"

1. =Cotter.= "One who inhabits a cot, or cottage, dependent on a farm."--_Jamieson._

2. =R. Aiken.= A friend with whom Burns had been brought into contact during the Old and New Light Controversy.

3. See Gray's "Elegy in a Country Churchyard," eighth stanza.

4. =lays.= Songs; probably from the same root as the German _lied_. The word was originally applied to a form of elegiac French poetry, much imitated by the English.

5. =train.= A favorite word with the poets at this time. Goldsmith uses it no fewer than six times in the "Deserted Village." The original meaning is something drawn along; from Lat. _traho_, to draw.

6. =sugh.= Also spelled _sough_. Whistling sound, murmur. Derived from the same root as sigh, for which word it is used by Burns in his lines, "On the Battle of Sherriffmuir":

"My heart for fear gae sough for sough To hear the thuds," etc.

7. Compare with Gray's "Elegy," line 3:

"The ploughman homeward plods his weary way."

8. Toil was perhaps p.r.o.nounced _tile_, thus properly rhyming with _beguile_. Johnson, in "London," says: