Address by Sir Robert Stout - Timaru

We are met here to unveil a statue to a Scottish poet.  It is a unique event in our history and may I be permitted to speak of its implications.    The poet whose monument we surround is the only poet to whom a like honour has been done in New Zealand.  We have created monuments to many of our political leaders, to men who have been pioneers of our settlements; but though we have in our midst a preponderance of people from Southern Britain and many from the sister isle, yet it is only to one poet, to a Scottish poet, that the monument has been erected.

The monument is to a poet but what does that imply?   Among our race in our Motherland we have many able men, patriots, statesmen, great soldiers, brave sailors, engineers, captains of industry, great financiers and great ecclesiastics: why is it that we have erected no monuments to these?   I pass by the monuments to Captain Cook.   He visited us and by his work became identified with New Zealand.   Have they not done great service to our race, and not only to our race but to humanity, services moreover, that we appreciate?   They have.   It is to a poet who died in poverty, who died young (for he was only thirty-seven when he passed away) that monuments have been erected.     Has such a proceeding any significance?   The influence of a poet who can estimate?   It was a Scotsman one of the Fletchers of Soultoun, who said he knew a man that believed that if a man were permitted to make all the ballads of a nation he would not care who should make its laws.   The race needs idealism.   It is the salt of life, the soul of existence, and without it nothing can ever be accomplished.    The man whom Bunyan characterised as the man with the muckrake may be necessary to humanity, but those who keep their eyes on the stars, who cry aloud to men, “Lift up your heads and hearts,” are the real leaders of the race.    They lead us to higher things.   This is the poet’s office and augurs well for us even in this infant stage of our history it is to a poet of our race that honour has been done.   Though we revere the past, generals and admirals, statesmen and the divine, the inventors, the organisers of labour, the scientists and others of our Motherland (the Dictionary of National Biography will tell that we have had thousands of such leaders), yet it is to a poet that we have set up our monument.    We thus proclaim that in our struggles in founding a new nation we have not forgotten the needs of higher things of life, of love, of songs, of dreams, of poetry, nor the poet.

“Who saw through life and death, through good and ill

Who saw through his own soul

The marvel of the everlasting will and open scroll,”

It may be asked, Why erect a monument?   There are many answers to such a question.   There is an incident in the life of one of our greatest scientists – John Tyndall – that may serve.   He tells us that it was contemplating a monument of Goethe’s that inspired him to devotion to scientific study.   If he was inspired by a monument, who can estimate the value of monuments to the race?   A great scientist with intellectual ability, if not genius, who is willing to search for the truth as above rubies, confers the greatest benefits on humanity.

The existence of monuments to poets shows on which side we are.  It is a perpetual testimony to ourselves, to our children and to our people for all time that there is more in life than a struggle for wealth or for food or for fame!   This monument is to a Scottish poet, and many of his poems were written in a language that many of our people do not understand; and because of this fact some of us believe that Burns was not a master of the English tongue.  That opinion is, I am assured, prevalent even amongst even those that hail from Scotland.   If you read his letters especially as well as some of his poems, you will such beliefs to be wholly erroneous.    Perfection in one language did not, in his case, imply ignorance of any other.   May I refer you to his song ‘To Mary in Heaven’ as illustrating my contention –

“Thou lingering star with lessening ray

That lov’st to greet the early morn

Again thou usher’st in the day

My Mary from my soul was torn

O Mary! Dear departed shade!

Where is thy place of blissful rest?

See’st thou thy lover lowly laid?

Hear’st thou the groans that rent his breast?”

I might quote many other songs and poems as ‘My Joan’, ‘Afton Water’, ‘Stay My Charmer’ or the specimen versions of the Hebrew Psalms.

The fact is that the Scottish tongue was once the English tongue.  The present English language has developed from the Midland or Mercian language, while the language that was once the literary language of Anglia – the Northern – and was spoken from the Humber to the Tay – now exists in Scotland.

It is not necessary, I am sure, to give you many details of the poet’s life.   He was born on 25 January 1759 and was the eldest son of his parents and their first child.   The humble dwelling in which he was born is still reverently preserved and many pilgrimages are made to Ayrshire to see it.   Like many other men of genius, there was much in his ancestry to which he was indebted.   His father, William Burns came from the East Coast of Scotland, from Kincardonshire and very possibly there was in him a blend of Celt and Norse that has produced so many able literary men in Scotland.   Lord Macaulay came from the same stock.   William Burns was thus described by his son:-

“Here lie the living husband’s dear remains,

The tender father and gen’rous friend,

The pitying heart that felt for human woe,

The dauntless heart that fear’d no human pride,

The friend of man, to vice alone a foe,

For e’en his failings lean’d to vitue’s side”

 He was a man of independent mind and of stern integrity.    The fact that he left his home and went out searching for work shows his enterprise, for in his urge to travel was not so common as with us and he took farm after farm, doing his own building and work showing that he had the industrial spirit.   Mrs Burns the poet’s mother has been described by one of her son’s biographers as a woman “with the highest sense of female dignity in her bosom, and in that respect not a whit behind the stateliest countess of the region.”    She loved music and her imagination was fed on the traditional stories of her fatherland.   Burns, like many others, was indebted to his mother for much of his music and his emotion.

I do not need to dwell on his father’s change from farm to farm nor upon Burns’ labour.   He had to work and to help his father as other farmer’s sons had to do.   The struggles of an Ayrshire farmer, even today, are not light.   I wonder how many farmers would like to live in a country where, for seven or sometimes eight months of the year the cattle have to be stall-fed.   In Burns’ day the struggle was intense, the life of the peasant simple and luxuries unknown.  Amid this struggle for life, however, as in other places in Scotland, education was not neglected, Robert Burns went to school and his letters show that he acquired the art of graceful composition and an acquaintance with some literature.   We learn that he acquired a knowledge of the French language so that he could read French prose.    But, along with what he learned in school, he was being educated out of doors, and by mixing with human kind.   How he came to see beauty where most people see none his poems show us; and in them are also embodied sense of social life with which he was surrounded.   And this social life was not always on a high level.    He was in his youth, as he described himself, “rantin’ rovin’ Robin.”   He came into the world, he tells us, in a tempest.   So severe was the hurricane at the time of his birth that his mother and he had to be removed  to another cottage, for their own was injured in the storm; and other storms, from which he was not easily protected, struck him during his early manhood.   But in all his tempests he had faith to himself, and faith that he was destined to do something for his country.   You will recall what he says in his song ‘Robin’ – the song about himself.   The gossip’s prediction was –

“He’ll have misfortunes great and sma’,

But aye a heart aboon them a’,

He’ll be a credit tae us a’’

We’ll a’ be proud o’ Robin.”

And this independence, this personal dignity, never left him in his darkest moments, or his deepest poverty.

He was twenty-seven years of age before the first, the Kilmarnock edition, of his poems was published, and at first many able men in Scotland recognised that the new bard had appeared.  What he did during the next ten years of his life must be learned from his biographers.    At the age of thirty-seven he passed away, and in considering his life let us not overlook his age, his surroundings or his opportunities.

This can be said of him, that he had many dear and firm friends, and those who knew him best loved him most.   The tribute his more staid brother, Gilbert, paid to him may be referred to.   You will find it in Hately Waddell’s edition of the poet’s work in the Appendix.

Leaving his life, it may be well asked wherein lies his power as a poet.   How is it that his “rustic bard” as he called himself in his poem ‘The Vision,’ has been placed among the immortals?   Leaving out the form of his poems, their main characteristics are the sincerity and the loving kindness that always permeate them.   The form, however counts for much.   They are simple, clear, pallucid as a mountain stream, full of rhythm and music.   No word is out of place: in form his songs are perfect.  But their mere form would not have endowed them with immortality.    They appealed to the Scottish people, and they appeal to all.    Their kindness, their overwhelming love makes them revered. Burns “loveth all things great and small.”   His heart was big enough and women, the lower animals, flowers, trees and that is in Nature.   Consider how the accidental destruction of a field mouse, house distresses him –

“Wee sleeket cow’rin tim’rus beastie,

O’ what a panic’s in thy breastie,

Thou need’ na’ start awa’ sae hasty

Wi’ bickerin’ brattle

I wad be laith to rin and chase thee

Wi’ murderin’ prattle.”

If we wish to teach the love of animals to our children, can we give them a better poem to learn?   His love of the mountain daisy is intense:

“Wee modest, crimson tipped flow’r

Thou’st met me in an evil hour;

For I mann crush amang the stoure

Thy slender stem:

To spare thee now is beyond my pow’r

Thou bonnie gem.”

Even the so-called personage that most of Europe treated as minor deity is not excluded from his regard or sympathy.

“But fare you well auld Nickie Ben,

O’ wad we tak a thought o’ that and men,

Ye aiblin’s might – I dinna ken,

Still hae a stake:

I’m wae to think upon yon den,

Even for your sake.”

“The Larger hope” was not a discovery of the nineteenth century.   Time does not allow me to quote to you other descriptions of Nature, of mountain, sea or sky or brook or the winter showers.   I must pass or to a class of songs in which has excelled, or perhaps, all poets – his love songs – and if, as Coleridge has said:

“All thoughts, all passions, all delights,

Whatever stirs his mortal frame,

All are ministers of love,

And feed his sacred flame.”

What of Burns love songs?    They cannot be overlooked.   Was there ever found in more true love song than ‘My luve is like a red, red rose’

“Oh my luve is like a red red rose,

That’s newly sprung in June

                                Oh my luve is like a melodie

That’ sweetly played in tune

As fair thou art, my bonnie lass

So deep in love am I

And I wad luve thee still, my dear

Till a’ the seas gang dry.”

And this song stands not alone: “Aye fond kiss and then we sever” and “Lassie wi’ the lint-white locks,” and many others are equally beautiful.    Some of the silly maudlin love songs popular variety theatres in the Old World are on quite a lower order.

Then with what pathos does he deal with memory!  This theme is found in many of his poems.  I have been present when ‘ John Anderson my Jo’ was sung, when the eyes of most of the old couples were suffused with tears.   And can you wonder?   Oh, memory! What does it not recall to us?   Have you ever read or seen on the stage Maeterlinck’s ‘Blue Bird’?    If you have, you will say that the scene picturing the visit of the children to the dead grandparents and seeing the dead brothers and sisters is the most pathetic thing in that play.   But Burns saw what fond memory saw and he pictured the dreams of the past:

“John Anderson my jo John

We clamb the hill thegither

And many a canty day John

We’ve had wi’ yin ane ither

Now we maun totter doon John

But hand in hand we’ll go:

And sleep thegither at the foot

John Anderson my jo”

There are John Andersons out of Scotland and what old couples can be unmoved when this song is sung?

Burns was a patriotic friend of his country.   He was not one who did not feel proud.   He was a Scotsman and wished to help Scotland.  He had –

“A wish that tae my latest hour

Will strongly heave my breast

That I, for poor auld Scotland’s sake

Some useful plan or book could make

Or sing a sang at least.”

And he sang the song that is the Scottish National Anthem and will ever so remain.   What the ‘Marseillaise’ is to France, ‘Scots wha hae’ is to Scotland.    It is, I think, more vigorous than the ’Marseillaise’ and if sung as I have heard it sung by Scotsmen it can raise as much enthusiasm as the ‘Marseillaise’ can do among the French people.   I know of no English song that creates as much enthusiasm among Englishmen as ‘Scots wha hae’ does amongst Scotsmen.    ‘Rule Britannia’  and ‘Ye Mariners of England,’ both by the bye, written by Scotsmen are not so energising.   I quote three verses:

There was another class of poems and songs that perhaps innurred his fellow countrymen more than any other I have quoted, and that was the class that exalted manly independence – that a man, whatever his position, should be a self regarding being, whilst at the same time he should uphold the brotherhood of man.   If you consider what the social life of Europe was before the French Revolution you will realise that Burns poems were a trumpet call for brotherhood.   ‘A man’s a man for a’ that’ enforces these three things:

“Is there for honest poverty

That hings his heed 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 stamp,

The man’s the gowd for a’ that!

Then let us pray that come it may

An’ come it will for a’ that!

That sense o’ worth, o’er a’ the earth,

May bear the gree for a’ that.

For a’ that an’ a’ that

Its comin’ yet for a’ that

That man to man the whole world o’er

Shall brithers be for a’that!”

These last two lines should be the motto of our peace societies; it is the call not to arms but to peace,

“That man to man, the whole world o’er

Shall brithers be for a’ that!”    

 Time does not permit me to deal with his great dramatic power, found in perhaps his greatest poems ‘Tam O’ Shanter’ and ‘The Jolly Beggars’ and seen in ‘The Twa Dogs’ and the ‘Twa Brigs’ and others.   Carlyle the greatest of the biographers of Burns suggests that he broke with the religion of his country.    If he did, he nevertheless could appreciate the domestic, social and religious life of his native land and no finer picture of the domestic life of the Scottish peasant has ever been drawn than appears in ‘The Cotters Saturday Night’ –

“But now the supper crowns their simple board,

And halesome parritch, chief o’ Scotia’s food,

The sowpe their only hawkie does afford

That ‘yont the hallan snugly chows her cood:

The dame brings forth , in complimental mood,

To grace the lad, her weel-hain’d kebbuck, fell

And aft he’s press’d, and aft he ca’s it guid

The frugal wife, garrulous, will tell,

How ‘twas a towmond auld sin lin’t was i’ the bell,”

Then the family worship and can you wonder at the reflection?

“From scenes like these auld Scotia’s grandeur springs

That makes loved at home, revered abroad -

A virtuous poplace may rise the while

And stand a wall of fire around their much-loved isle.”

What did Burns do for Scotland? I answer: he carried a message to his countrymen   A message that has been heard and is still being heard by his race far away from “the land of the mountain and the flood.”

It has reached New Zealand.   If you consider the state of Scotland in the eighteenth century and what it is now you will realise how its social life has been raised and sweetened how many barbarities have been swept away, how brotherhood has grown and in helping and aiding in the advancement of Burns’ songs have played no mean part.

He has become immortal wherever the English language is spoken.    One of his songs – an old song improved, nay transformed  - was sufficient to have achieved this greatness for him.   We revere the memory of John Howard Payne for his one remembered song “Home Sweet Home” and Burns can never be forgotten when – as almost always happens whenever the citizens of the Empire meet at a social gathering they sing together ‘Auld Lang Syne’ before they depart.   In far off India, in China, in Japan, in North and South America, in Australia and here amongst us at the Antipodes, do the people join in that old kindly song of past memories.   Can we not turn and say:

“We twa hae run about the braes

And pu’d the gowans fine

But we’ve wonder’d mony a weary foot

Sin’ auld lang syne

We twa hae paidled i’ the burn;

Frae mornin’ sun till dine

But seas between braid hae roar’d

Sin’ auld lang syne.”

And I often wonder what ending would have given to his poem ‘The Vision’ if he had let his imagination roam and pictured the Indians – as they were then termed – our Maoris singing his Scottish songs, and seen, as we see today, one who is proud to call himself a Scotsman raising for the benefit of his town a monument to commemorate his name in an island of which Burns knew only the name.   It would have emphasised his verse:

“Then never murmur nor repine,

Strive in thy humble sphere and shrine,

And trust me, not Potosi’s mine

Nor king’s regard

Can give a bliss o’er matching thine

A rustic bard.”

I have spoken shortly, and I have by my quotations made Burns speak and I have not had the time to do more than hint at the beauties and glories of Burns that warm the Scottish heart.    If you feel that warmth you will understand why it is that the Scottish people revere Burns, and why it is that their wish is to hand down to their children, and their children’s children even to the last generation, their regard for the great Scottish poet – this man of noble genius.   We know every race has its poets – we do not underrate them – we appreciate them – but of Burns we exclaim with Thomas Carlyle: “We are not required to plead for Burns.   In pitying admiration he lies enshrined in all our hearts in a far nobler mausoleum than one of marble; neither will his works, even as they are, pass away from the memory of men.  While the Shakespeares and Miltons roll on like mighty rivers through the country of Thought, bearing fleets of traffickers and assiduous pearl fishers on their waves, this little Valclusa Fountain will also arrest our eye, for this also is of Nature’s own and most cunning workmanship, bursts from the depths of the Earth with a full gushing current into the light of day, and often will the traveller turn aside to drink of its clear waters and muse among its rocks and pines.”