Robert Burns Poem by Alexander Anderson

'See projected through time
For him an audience interminable.'


Walt Whitman.

Ho! stand bare-browed with me to-day, no common name we sing,
And let the music in your hearts like thunder-marches ring;
We hymn a name to which the heart of Scotland ever turns,
The master singer of us all, the ploughman—Robert Burns.


How shall we greet such name that stands a beacon in the years?
With smiles of joy and love, or bursts of laughter and sweet tears?
Greet him with all—a fitting meed for him who came along,
And wove around our lowly life the splendours of his song.


What toil was his; but, know ye not, that ever in their pride
The unseen heaven-sent messengers were walking side by side;
He felt their leaping fire, and heard far whispers shake and roll,
While visions, like the march of kings, went surging through his soul.


'Thou shalt not sing,' they cried, 'of men low set in sordid life,
Nor statesmen strutting their brief hour in rancour and in strife,
Nor the wild battle-field where death stalks red, and where the slain
Lie thicker than in harvest fields the sheaves of shining grain.


'Sing thou the thoughts that come to thee, to lighten all thy brow,
When, with a glory all around, thou standest by the plough,
Sing the sweet loves of youth and maid, the streams that glide along,
And let the music of the lark leap up within thy song.


'Sing thou of Scotland till she feels the rich blood fill her veins,
And rush along like mimic storms at all thy glorious strains;
A thousand years will come and pass, and other poets be,
But still within her heart of hearts shall beat the soul of thee.'


He came, and on his lips lay fire that winged his fervid song,
And scathed like lightning all that rose to walk behind a wrong;
He sang, and on the lowly cot beside the happy stream,
A halo fell upon the thatch, with heaven in its gleam.


And love grew sweeter at his touch, for full in him there lay
A mighty wealth of melting tones, and all their soft sweet way;
He shapes their rapture and delight, for unto him was given
The power to wed to burning words the sweetest gift of heaven.


O blessing on this swarthy seer, who gave us such a boon,
And still kept in his royal breast his royal soul in tune;
Men looked with kindlier looks on men, and in far distant lands
His very name made brighter eyes and firmer clasp of hands.


The ploughman strode behind his plough, and felt within his heart
A glory like a crown descend upon his peaceful art;
The hardy cotter, bare of arm, who wrestled with the soil,
Rose up his rugged height, and blessed the kingly guild of toil.


And sun-browned maidens in the field among the swaying corn,
Their pulses beating with the soft delight of love new born,
Felt his warm music thrill their hearts, and glow to finger tips,
As if the spirit of him who sang was throbbing on their lips.


What gift was this of his to hold his country's cherished lyre,
And strike, with glowing eye, the chords of passion's purest fire;
Say, who can guess what light was shed upon his upturned brow,
When in the glory of his youth he walked behind the plough?


What visions girt with glorious things, what whispers of far fame,
That from the Sinai of his dreams like radiant angels came;
What potent spells that held him bound, or swift, and keen and strong,
Lifted to mighty heights of thought this peasant king of song!


Hush, think not of that time when Fame her rainbow colours spread,
And all the rustling laurel-wreath was bound about his head;
When in the city, 'mid the glare of fashion's living light,
He moved—the whim of those that wished to see the novel sight.


Oh, heavens! and was this all they sought? to please a moment's pride,
Nor cared to know for one short hour this grand soul by their side;
But shook him off with dainty touch of well-gloved hand, and now—
Oh, would to God that all his life had been behind the plough?


And dare we hint that after this a bitter canker grew,
That all his aspirations sank, and took a paler hue;
That dark and darker grew the gloom till in the heedless town,
The struggling giant in his youth heart-wearied laid him down?


What were his thoughts, that sad last hour, of earth—ah, who can tell!—
When, by the column of his song our laurelled Cæsar fell?
We ask but questions of the Sphinx; we only know that death,
Unclasped his singing robes in tears, but left untouched the wreath.


Thou carper; well we know at times he sung in wilder mirth,
Till the rapt angel of his song had one wing on the earth;
But canst thou wild volcanoes tame, to belch their hidden fire,
Without one stain of darker red to shame its glowing pyre?


Back to thy native herd, and spend thy little shrunken day,
And if thou sting—for sting thou must—let it be common clay;
There live, nor step across this pale, but leave the right to heaven
To judge how far this soul has dimmed the splendours it has given.


For us who look with other eyes he stands in other light,
A great one stumbling on with hands outstretched to all the right;
Who, though his heart had shrunk beneath the doom that withers all,
Still wove a golden thread of song to stretch from cot to hall.


And now as when the mighty gods had fanes in ancient days,
And up the fluted columns swept great storms of throbbing praise,
So we to all, as in our heart this day with tender hand,
Uprear the marble shape of him, the Memnon of our land.


And sweeter sounds are ours than those which from that statue came,
When the red archer in the East smote it with shafts of flame;
We hear those melodies that made a glory crown our youth,
And wove around the staider man their spells of love and truth.


And still we walk within their light—a light that cannot die;
It streams forth from a purer sun and from a wider sky;
It crowns this heaven-born deputy of Song's supremest chords,
And leaps like altar flame along his soul-entrancing words.


Lo! take the prophet's reach of sight, and pass beyond the gloom,
Where thousands of our coming kind in thronging legions loom;
They, too, will come as we this hour with passionate worship wrung,
And place upon those mute, white lips, the grand great songs he sung.


Ho! then, stand bare of brow with me, no common name we sing,
And let the music in your hearts like thunder marches ring;
We hymn a name to which the heart of Scotland ever turns,
The master singer of us all, our ploughman—Robert Burns!