MASARYK UNIVERSITY

FACULTY OF EDUCATION

Department of English Language and Literature

Scotland in Robert Burns’ Poetry

Bachelor Thesis

Brno 2013

Author: Supervisor: Andrea Tošovská Mgr. Lucie Podroužková, Ph.D.

Declaration

Hereby I declare that I have compiled this thesis on my own and all the sources of

information used in the thesis are listed in the references.

Brno, 17 April 2013 ……………………………….......

Andrea Tošovská

Acknowledgement

I would like to thank my supervisor Mgr. Lucie Podroužková, Ph.D. for her kind

advice, valuable feedback, and continuous support.

Annotation

This bachelor thesis deals with the theme of nature in Robert Burns’ poetry. The main

aim of the thesis is to explain the role of nature in Burns’ poems and songs, the message of

the poems, and functioning of nature as a means of poems from the point of view of a literary

device.

The introductory part focuses on the natural and historical attributes of Scotland to

introduce the Scottish identity and an objective context in which the poems were written. The

theoretical part also provides an insight into pre-romanticism, defines natural poetry, and

briefly describes Robert Burns’ life and work. The main part of the thesis deals with analyses

of selected natural poems using a method of close textual analysis.

Key words

Robert Burns, nature, natural poetry, attributes of Scotland, love, song, close textual analysis,

pre-romanticism

Anotace

Tato bakalářská práce se zabývá tématem přírody v poezii Roberta Burnse. Hlavním

cílem práce je vysvětlit roli přírody v Burnsových básních a písních, poselství básní a funkci

přírody z pohledu literárního prostředku.

Úvodní část se věnuje přírodním a historickým atributům Skotska pro nastínění

skotské identity a poskytnutí objektivního kontextu, v jehož rámci básně vznikaly. Teoretická

část dále poskytuje nahlédnutí do preromantizmu, definuje přírodní poezii a stručně

představuje život a tvorbu Roberta Burnse. Hlavní část práce se zabývá analýzou vybraných

přírodních básní pomocí metody „close textual analysis“.

Klí čová slova

Robert Burns, příroda, přírodní lyrika, atributy Skotska, láska, píseň, close textual analysis,

preromantizmus

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Table of Contents

1. Introduction ................................................................................................................. 6

2. The Scottish Identity: Natural and Historical Attri butes of Scotland ................... 7

3. The Life and Times of Robert Burns ........................................................................ 9

4. Pre-Romanticism and Natural Poetry ..................................................................... 11

5. Poetry Analysis .......................................................................................................... 13

5.1 To a Mouse .......................................................................................................................... 14

5.2 My Heart’s in the Highlands ............................................................................................... 19

5.3 The Rosebud ........................................................................................................................ 23

5.4 I Love My Jean .................................................................................................................... 27

5.5 Address to the Woodlark ...................................................................................................... 31

5.6 The Lazy Mist....................................................................................................................... 35

6. Conclusion .................................................................................................................. 38

Works Cited ...................................................................................................................... 41

Appendix ........................................................................................................................... 45

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1. Introduction

This thesis aims to examine the theme of nature in the poetical work of Robert Burns.

It concentrates on the role of nature and natural elements in the poems, the message

transferred through these elements, and the place of nature in the poems from the point of

view of literary devices.

The main reason why I have chosen the topic regarding poetry and analysis of poetical

work is that I consider it very challenging on one side and very enriching on the other. The

world of poetry always seemed to me ambiguous; in fact, inaccessible. Yet, after encountering

with the poetry of Robert Burns, I discovered that it does not have to be that way. Robert

Burns helped to create Scottish national identity and shape the external image of Scotland,

and I wish to find the merit of natural poetry in this process. Moreover, I intend to answer a

question what message and ideas are communicated through Burns’ natural poetry.

The introductory theoretical part of this thesis is divided into three brief chapters. The

first chapter is focused on the natural and historical attributes of Scotland which have been

shaping the national Scottish identity. The purpose of the chapter is to provide the reader with

an objective image of Scotland as the background of the poems and resulting eighteenth

century atmosphere in the country, which is likely to be projected in the analyzed poems. The

second chapter introduces the life and personality of Robert Burns and clarifies his status in

the society of the eighteenth century and today. The third chapter introduces the literary

movement Robert Burns pioneered, the pre-romanticism, to depict the overall character of

Burns’ work and his approach to poetry. In addition, the basic typology of natural poetry is

presented and a definition of natural poetry is provided in order to illustrate its variety and

specify the analyzed subject.

The main part of the thesis deals with analyses of selected natural poems using a

method of close textual analysis, investigating the text in depth from different perspectives. In

order to select poems with different attributes, I conducted a thorough research of Burns’

poetry. The aim of analysing the poems is to question the thematic and structural role of

nature. The major research question attended is, “What is the extent of variations of usage of

nature and natural elements in the poetical work of Robert Burns?”. The final part of the

thesis provides conclusion based on individual analyses and answers the main research

question in general. Appendix of this work includes Czech translations of analyzed poems by

Josef Václav Sládek and Jiří Valja.

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2. The Scottish Identity: Natural and Historical Attri butes of Scotland

Moulton claims that music about Scotland derives from the physical land, people,

history, and stories of Scotland (22). I suggest that this proposition might be extended fully on

all poetical work devoted to Scotland. The composer as well as the poet must try to interpret a

certain place, and translate it into sounds or rhymes. They are both inspired by the landscapes,

weather, and life which, in case of the poet, transform into words and create verbal Scotland. I

agree with Moulton’s (22, 23) further suggestion that the images provided and evoked by

these works form the imagination of an audience in and out of Scotland and provide specific

portrayal of the country. For an outsider with no experience related to Scotland, these

representations become reality. It is vital to provide the reader of this thesis with a brief

survey into the attributes of breathtaking Scottish scenery and haunting history to allow him

to create own perception and facilitate comprehension of the subsequent analyses.

Scotland’s identity was shaped distinctively by its geography and wild nature.

Geographical features separate the nation into three main regions maintaining some linguistic

and cultural autonomy: the Highlands, Lowlands, and islands. The Lowlands are and were the

most populous area with the largest cities such as Glasgow or Edinburgh and, naturally, have

been for centuries the seat of government. The Highlands, on the other side, are rugged,

mountainous area, with narrow valleys, lochs, and harsh living conditions. (Moulton 24;

“Lowlands”)

The earliest inhabitants of Scotland had to resist many different invading groups which

is where the roots of Scotland’s fierce sense of independence lay. The longest and most

serious conflict the country experienced was with England. As Moulton concludes, the tense

relationship was encouraging the Scottish to differentiate themselves from the neighbours by

establishing their own traditions and sense of nationality (32).

During the Scottish struggles for independence, a national hero arose; William

Wallace. Although he was caught and killed in the fourteenth century after betrayal of a

fellow Scot, he inspires Scottish nationalism to this day (Moulton 33). The most celebrated of

Scotland’s documents, the Declaration of Arbroath (1320), is one of the consequences of the

spread of nationalism stirred up by Wallace. The document is praised for its claim that men

are inherently free, and a king is ultimately answerable to his subjects stating that if the king

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of Scotland should give up, and agree to make the kingdom subject to the king of England,

the Scottish should drive him out as their enemy. (“The Declaration of Arbroath, 1320”)

Following almost three hundred years of internal conflict with England culminated

with the execution of catholic Mary Queen of Scots by her cousin Queen Elizabeth of

England. When the Protestant Reformation reached Scotland, the Church of Scotland on a

Presbyterian basis was established (“History of the Church of Scotland”). Scotland then

entered a new phase of relations with England when Mary’s son James VI, who was brought

up as a Presbyterian, became the king of England in 1603 thus uniting the crowns of both

nations. He planned on officially uniting the two countries and eventually Anglicising

Scotland. His son, Charles I, continued the plan, but also interfered in religious issues, which

is what Presbyterians considered unlawful. (“The Making of the Union”)

At the end of the seventeenth century, the Scots became discontent over politics and

religion divisions, and emigration from Scotland to many countries all over the world

increased. When in 1688 James II, who attempted to impose religious toleration, was driven

out of England, his supporters Jacobites, including the Highlanders remaining loyal to the

Stuarts, initiated several unsuccessful uprisings followed by a fierce English response. The

Scottish claim to a monarch expired when the Stuart line ended with Queen Anne’s death in

1714. The Act of Union in 1707, which politically unified Scotland and England, pressed

threats upon the Scottish independence. Although some of the Scottish were pleased with the

economic promises made by England, most were incensed by this Act. (Moulton 36,

“Jacobites and the Union”)

Exiled James Stuart, son of James II, came back to Scotland with his troops hoping to

lay claim to the throne as the legitimate heir but was defeated. So was his son Charles Edward

Stuart, known as Bonnie Prince Charlie, who suffered a defeat at the battle of Culloden in

1745 (Moulton 37). Thousands of Highlanders were killed, raped, plundered during and after

the battle. The Jacobites were dispersed, and all symbols of the Highlanders’ such as kilts,

bagpipes, and Gaelic language were prohibited (“Jacobites and the Union”, Moulton 38). The

defeat at Culloden ended Scottish independence.

Robert Burns showed his compassion to the Highlanders in a poem The Jolly Beggars:

John Highlandman. The poem refers to a penal colony for convicted criminals and for Burns,

as Sibbald concludes, John Highlandman's crime was to wear a highland dress and be loyal to

his clan (“Robert Burns and 18th Century”). The fourth stanza of the poem summarizes it:

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They banished him beyond the sea

But ere the bud was on the tree

Adown my cheeks the pearls run,

Embracing my John Highlandman. (qtd in Sibbald, "Robert Burns and 18th Century")

After the union of 1707, the territorial border was erased, but the cultural one was

strengthen. The internal conflicts between the Highlands and Lowlands shifted to united effort

to differentiate Scottish culture from English culture. For centuries the Highlanders were seen

as a backward group of clans. Ironically, after 1745, they became the symbol of Scottish

independence and the new cultural identity of whole Scotland was taken from them. During

these times of searching for national identity, many authors contributed in creation of the

proud image of Scotland. Among them, a special place belongs to Robert Burns.

3. The Life and Times of Robert Burns

Robert Burns is celebrated in Scotland as the national poet and became one of the

symbols of the country. Although the “ploughman poet” was raised on a farm in humble

conditions, as an intelligent, well read, educated, and witty man, he represented “a true son of

the Scottish Enlightenment” (“Jacobites, Enlightenment”).

Burns was born in 1759 and raised in the southwest Lowlands. At the beginning of the

eighteenth century, there was no sanitary system in Scotland, streets served as dustbins and

dead bodies were placed in open graves. Spread of diseases was instant and life expectancy

very low, frequently thanks to drunkenness. There were significant differences between the

rich and poor, and Burns’ family belonged to hundreds of farmer families in financial distress.

(Sibbald, “Historical Facts”)

The eighteenth century, however, is also a period of huge changes with an

international impact such as the American War of Independence and the French revolution,

which were stirring up nationalism and democratic spirits of many men worldwide, Robert

Burns including. This environment raised a man with a sense of identity with his class,

religiously tolerant, with a friendly personality and inability to conform to strict standards of

morality (Burns, “Písně a Balady” 4). Stimulated by the conditions under which he lived and

gifted with his exceptional temperament, he developed sense of independence and Scotch

patriotism.

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Burns’ first publication, Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect, appeared in 1786 and

was very successful in Scotland. The huge success even terminated his plans to move abroad

in search of work. Burns moved to Edinburgh and published the second edition of his first

book. The poet worked together with James Johnson on collecting and editing native songs

for The Scots Musical Museum, and he later contributed to George Thomson’s A Select

Collection of Original Scottish Airs for the Voice. (Moulton 57, Burns, “Písně a Balady” 4)

Robert Burns, a young Scottish farmer using neglected and unfashionable dialect,

casting aside all conventional restraints, fascinated aristocrats in Edinburgh with his

“uncultured” upbringing (Moulton 57). He was welcomed by all; philosophers of Edinburgh

as well as peasants in their cottages, and represented a “defender of their country’s fame”

(“British Poetry”). For them, Burns fulfilled the Enlightenment notions of Rousseau and

Adam Smith of an uncorrupted man (Moulton 57).

Living more than a decade after the uprising of 1745, he was part of renewed even

though more passive resistance to English co-rule. After reading the history of William

Wallace, Burns wrote, “It poured a Scottish prejudice in my veins which will boil along there

till the flood-gates of life shut in eternal rest” (Moulton 58).

Unlike Macpherson and Scott, who are together with Burns the most respected authors

of the period around the Scottish enlightenment, with their romanticized depictions of

Scotland, Burns tends to present a more native view of his homeland; thus his adoption as the

national poet (Moulton 57). Butcher suitably states, “Where one person comprehends and

enjoys Shelleys elaborately allegorical criticism of the world as he knew it, a hundred

understand and delight in ‘A mans a man for A that.’” (267). Whereas Macpherson translated

Gaelic poems into English, and Scott wrote his novels primarily in English, Burns instead

wrote in the more common “Scots-an-English-related” language common in the Lowlands

(Moulton 60). His language can be characterised as simple and direct which is in agreement

with his audience; he wrote for and of the masses. Robert Burns wrote most often about

people whom he knew intimately, and dealt with simple Scotch manners and customs.

According to Raymond Bentman, Burns’ written language combined “older Scottish diction,

contemporary colloquial Scottish of various dialects, spoken sophisticated Scottish, spoken

English and literary English” (qtd. in Moulton 61); thus appealing both to the common Scot

and the educated aristocrat.

Variety of Robert Burns’ work is extensive. As to the type of his work, Burns

published own collections of poems, focused on writing and collecting songs, and his life is

aptly illustrated thanks to letters Burns wrote to those important to him. Among his most

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famous verses are his love songs such as “O My Luve is Like a Red Red Rose”, and also

more serious poems focusing on the democratic spirit and universal brotherhood. Nature’s

sternest aspects gave him most delight as Burns himself declared:

There is scarcely any earthly object,” says he, “gives me more, - I do not know that I

should call it pleasure, - but something which exalts me, something which enraptures

me, - than to walk in the sheltered side of a wood or a high plantation, in a cloudy

winter day, and hear the stormy wind howling among the trees, and raving over the

plain… (qtd. in “British Poetry”).

Burns wrote more than seven hundred poems, songs, epitaphs, epigrams, elegies, and

epistles, and the theme of nature appears in different forms at least in a hundred of them

(“Works with a Theme of Nature”). The poet expresses his feelings for Scottish scenery

saying, “I have a particular pleasure in those little pieces of poetry such as our Scots songs,

&c. where the names and landskip – features of rivers, lakes, or woodlands, that one knows,

are introduced” (qtd. in Moulton 62).

Burns rejected the common aesthetic of the time that called for the expression of

universalities about human nature - “poet being superior to time and place” (Bentman qtd. in

Moulton 61). The peasantry of Scotland loved him; for he invested their feelings and

sentiments, their joys and sorrows, with dignity and beauty, he redeemed their language from

contempt and celebrated their cultural heritage. When he died in 1796, an unprecedented

amount of mourners attended his funeral lining the streets of Dumfries leading to the

cemetery. (“British Poetry”, “Robert Burns and Death”)

4. Pre-Romanticism and Natural Poetry

Defining English literature of the eighteenth century is not an easy task. Some authors

classify it chronologically as the neoclassicism, pre-romanticism, and romanticism (“An

Introduction to British Poetry”). Burns has been viewed as the pioneer of pre-romanticism, a

new literary tradition appearing in the latter half of the eighteenth century and lasting until the

end of the century. Some authors, however, rather use more general expression, the

“Eighteenth-Century English Literature”, since it in their eyes better characterises the whole

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varied body of literature which was written in the Great Britain during the eighteenth century

(“Eighteenth-Century Miscellanies” 425).

Nevertheless, it might be said that the literary movement into which Burns belonged

was a response to the restraints and scientific approach of the Enlightenment, and it cannot be

characterised as romanticism yet. According to materials provided by University Le Mans, the

attributes of pre-romanticism include praise of individual enterprise, authentic emotions,

sentimentality, self-pity, and contemplation of nature (“An Introduction to British Poetry”).

Using topics from reality and incorporating animals in texts was very common, as well as the

elements of Celtic folklore, Middle Ages and Rousseau’s “natural man”. Reading this list of

characteristics, one might seem to read attributes of the work of Robert Burns. His sensitivity

to nature, high valuation of feelings and emotion, spontaneity, clear opinion on freedom, and

interest in Scottish tradition and songs are the qualities which tie Burns with romanticism.

Encyclopædia Britannica provides the following definition of pre-romanticism, which

I believe depicts precisely not only attributes of the pre-romantic literature, but also the

atmosphere in which the movement originated:

… a shift in public taste away from the grandeur, austerity, nobility, idealization, and

elevated sentiments of Neoclassicism or Classicism toward simpler, more sincere, and

more natural forms of expression. This new emphasis partly reflected the tastes of the

growing middle class, who found the refined and elegant art forms patronized by

aristocratic society to be artificial and overly sophisticated; the bourgeoisie favoured

more realistic artistic vehicles that were more emotionally accessible. (“Pre-

Romanticism”)

What poets most tried to see and represent throughout the larger period, according to

The Norton Anthology of English Literature, was nature understood as “the universal and

permanent elements in human experience” (“The Restoration and the Eighteenth Century”).

Natural poetry, one of the main aspects of pre-romanticism and romanticism, is also the focus

of this thesis, and the question which needs to be answered at this moment is “What is a

nature poem?”. One might claim that every poem dealing with life qualifies. For the purpose

of this thesis, it is necessary to narrow the definition. Michael Bugeja’s definition from the

book The Art and Craft of Poetry describes the nature poem as, “A poem in which nature

plays an integral role, emphasizing terrain and life (including humans) in a natural setting,

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season, metaphor, symbol, situation or theme” (42). The integrating role of nature does not

differentiate between serving as the central or background theme in a poem.

To illustrate the extent of the definition and many ways a poet can approach nature in

his work, I present Bugeja’s typology of natural poetry. The oldest and most common in the

canon is natural poetry serving as a tribute to the season, usually welcoming the season, and

asking it to be gentle or fruitful (43). Human-nature conflict is next frequent theme being

dealt with in natural poems. Human or nature in these poems appears in a perilous situation,

and at mercy of each other (44). Human-nature relationship, typically concerning a person

contemplating some aspect of nature, longing for its qualities is next common type (44). Very

often nature serves as a metaphor or symbol of a human condition. In these poems, aspects or

elements of nature express feelings about humanity through implied comparison or

symbolically (45). “A human encountering nature” is the kind of poem in which the poet

beholds an element of nature as if for the first time, with keen perception. Nature might also

serve as a reflection of mood, as a backdrop for mood, where the setting is outdoors, and the

poet describes a personal feeling (45). Celebrating one’s place in nature is a type in which the

poet celebrates himself as a part of nature (46). Many poems about farming would fit here. A

poet may decide to focus on some element of nature and describe its essence (46). Isolation

from nature is next basic type of natural poetry in which a person feels apart from the natural

world. The final type mentioned by Bugeja is a poem using nature as reflection of God (46).

5. Poetry Analysis

Nature poetry is a body of writing well worth study. Natural poems serve as means of

celebration of nature, expressing our connection with the natural world, and also as metaphors

and symbols. This part of the thesis focuses on analyses of selected poems from Robert

Burns’ collection and aims to reveal specific purpose of using nature and natural aspects in

them.

In the following subchapters, every poem is briefly introduced and a thesis, highlighted

in bold, established. The thesis based on the analysis in a form of close reading is

subsequently interpreted using relevant evidences. In order to select poems to be analyzed in

this thesis, I conducted a research of collections of Burns’ poetry. Individual poems were

evaluated with regard to a classification of natural poetry described in the Chapter 4. The aim

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was to select poems with different attributes, and possibly belonging to different classes of

natural poetry.

The process of analysis was adapted with consideration of the purpose of this thesis, and

the typology and classification of analyzed elements are based on the guide for poetry

analysis prepared by the Undergraduate Writing Center of University of Texas (“Analyzing

Poetry”) and Dr. Patten from San Jose State University (Patten).

The elements observed includes namely context, meaning the reference to a position of

an analyzed poem in Burns’ work; content in terms of the speaker, tone, tension, and factual

context to detect how these features change the understanding of the poem; language in terms

of a word choice, meaning, and rhythm to evaluate the meaning and purpose of the text;

imagery, the figurative language from the metaphorical, symbolical, visual, and sensory point

of view to analyse the poems’ theme and tone; form such as the structure, stanzas and lines to

evaluate contribution of these elements to the main idea of the work; and, finally, syntax,

more precisely the use of verbs, stylistic devices, sentence structure, and punctuation to reveal

the style of the work, and how these features influence ideas in the poem.

5.1 To a Mouse

To a Mouse

Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie,

O, what a panic's in thy breastie!

Thou need na start awa sae hasty,

Wi' bickering brattle!

I wad be laith to rin an' chase thee,

Wi' murd'ring pattle!

I'm truly sorry man's dominion,

Has broken nature's social union,

An' justifies that ill opinion,

Which makes thee startle

At me, thy poor, earth-born companion,

An' fellow-mortal!

I doubt na, whiles, but thou may thieve;

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What then? poor beastie, thou maun live!

A daimen icker in a thrave

'S a sma' request;

I'll get a blessin wi' the lave,

An' never miss't!

Thy wee bit housie, too, in ruin!

It's silly wa's the win's are strewin!

An' naething, now, to big a new ane,

O' foggage green!

An' bleak December's winds ensuin,

Baith snell an' keen!

Thou saw the fields laid bare an' waste,

An' weary winter comin fast,

An' cozie here, beneath the blast,

Thou thought to dwell -

Till crash! the cruel coulter past

Out thro' thy cell.

That wee bit heap o' leaves an' stibble,

Has cost thee mony a weary nibble!

Now thou's turn'd out, for a' thy trouble,

But house or hald,

To thole the winter's sleety dribble,

An' cranreuch cauld!

But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane,

In proving foresight may be vain;

The best-laid schemes o' mice an 'men

Gang aft agley,

An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,

For promis'd joy!

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Still thou art blest, compar'd wi' me

The present only toucheth thee:

But, Och! I backward cast my e'e.

On prospects drear!

An' forward, tho' I canna see,

I guess an' fear! (Burns, “To a Mouse”)

This poem with a postscript On turning her up in her nest, with the plough, November,

1785, was published in Kilmarnock, Scotland, on July 31, 1786, as a part of the collection of

Burns’ poems Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect (Wilkie, “Understanding Robert Burns” 74). The

Kilmarnock Edition of Burns’ poems was the first book of his works published (Sibbald,

“Analysis of To a Mouse”). In this poem, the author deals with the issue of nature at

human’s mercy, the necessity to respect nature and its creatures, and identifies the

animal difficulties with anxieties of a human and the human world.

This poem is introspective, based on Burns’ real experience, and it is easy to identify

the speaker with the author (MacLean). The speaker is actively involved in the happening of

the poem and refers to himself in the first person. Knowing the life story of Robert Burns

allows the reader to understand speaker’s attitude towards the animal. Burns’ family suffered

from oppression and poverty; however, I believe it is not the primary intention of the poem to

compare Burns life with the misfortune of the mouse. It is not Burns in particular but all

mankind the speaker speaks about. The four lines of the finale but one stanza claim that

everyone’s plans, no matter how good the plans are, might go wrong and result in

disappointment. These fears and regrets, the “anxieties”, are common to all men and women,

to “mice an 'men”, throughout history. The most famous lines of the poem illustrate it:

The best-laid schemes o' mice an 'men

Gang aft agley,

An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,

For promis'd joy! (39-42)

For understanding this poem, it is important to keep in mind Burns’ personal

experience. To a Mouse is one of the poems which clarify why Burns is called the

“ploughman” poet. It is almost winter and the speaker works hard on his field. He destroys

unintentionally mouse’s nest, and knows that the animal, small, harmless, and defenceless,

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will suffer. As it is indicated in the thesis to this poem, Burns criticises the human’s behaviour

to nature, the changes in the relationship of a man to nature, and the “broken nature’s social

union”.

As Coyer claims, Adam Smith's The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) is the key text

in the moral philosophy of the Scottish Enlightenment, and Burns’ regret at breaking

“nature’s social union” reflects Smith’s opinion that “all earthly creatures are bound together

through benevolent exchange” (Coyer). To a Mouse is one of the poems advocating on

against cruelty to animals; however, it is not meant to shock or severely reprimand. Burns

went much further in criticising man’s behaviour towards nature in other poem, On Seeing a

Wounded Hare:

INHUMAN man! curse on thy barb'rous art,

And blasted be thy murder-aiming eye;

May never pity soothe thee with a sigh,

Nor ever pleasure glad thy cruel heart! (Burns, “On Seeing a Wounded Hare” 1-2)

Jamieson in his book A Companion to Environmental Philosophy calls Burns a poet

who gave “voice to a form of environmental ethic” (148). In the book, the human dominion

supplanting an earlier social union where humans and other living creatures were equal is

explained especially by the adoption of agriculture and industrialism which both experienced

boom during Burns’ life.

To a Mouse is one of the most famous of Burns’ work. There are aspects such as no

dubiety in the meaning and interpretation, no complex imagery constructing the poem’s

theme, for which this poem is very often analyzed at schools in the literature lessons. It

contains several memorable lines which have been discussed repeatedly and inspired many

other artists. One of the people who found inspiration in the message of the poem was John

Steinbeck who developed his thoughts in his very famous novel Of Mice and Men (Sibbald,

“Analysis of To a Mouse”). Previously quoted lines 39-42 describe virtually the whole story

of the novel claiming that we cannot plan everything in our lives no matter how hard we try to

do so. Knowing that we have no control over our own destiny is what causes the fear

materialize in the final lines of the poem, “An' forward, tho' I canna see, / I guess an' fear!”

(47-48).

The compassionate tone of the poem is developed and highly influenced by the diction

the speaker uses. The diminutives such as “beastie”, “housie”, “Mousie” contribute to overall

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familiarity and affection in the tone. However, as the poem progresses, the tone changes from

pitying the sad destiny of the little “beastie” to expressing its luck in the last stanza and

feeling sorry for the humankind, “Still thou art blest, compar’d wi’me / The present only

toucheth thee” (43-44)

The diminutives create also specific form of tension; especially the word “beastie”.

The denotation of the word “beast” from the Oxford dictionary is “an animal, especially a

large or dangerous four-footed one” which is inconsistent with the picture of a mouse. The

poem begins naming the mouse a “beastie”, but in the last but one stanza the animal becomes

“Mousie”. It is not “nest” anymore but “housie” the ploughman destroys. It might suggest the

evolvement of the relationship between the speaker and the beastie. This causes heightened

involvement the audience experience as the animal is being described more and more as a

human. In the Dictionary of the Scots Language, however, the word denotation is “a living

creature of any kind, that is not of the human species” which contributes to the feeling of

nature in general being at a human’s mercy. In both cases, the mouse and men are made equal

by the speaker saying that it is not alone in “failing to build wisely for the future; men fail at

that too” (“To a Mouse”). The relationship changes further in the final stanza where the

speaker claims that the human’s life is much more difficult because people have the ability to

consider their future. Animals are “toucheth” only by present and live by present.

In each stanza, there are six lines in length, the first line rhymes with the second, third,

and fifth, and the fourth line rhymes with the sixth. This form is called “Standard Habbie” and

was rediscovered during the turbulent times of the eighteenth century (Lindsay). The quick

lines serve well the purpose of social observations for which Burns is known. Each stanza

represents one sentence providing a logical thought. The tone of the poem is influenced also

by the poet’s syntactical choices, especially exclamation marks accompanying certain

interjections and emphasizing certain phrases.

Burns uses for the speaker a specific English dialect called Scots to bring the poem

closer to common “ploughman-like” Scottish people (“To a Mouse”). The use of diminutives

is not supposed to be sentimental, rather to bridge the world of mice and men by friendly

compassion. Both Czech translations, by Jiří Valja as well as by Josef Václav Sládek, use

diminutives such as “zvířátko”, “domeček”, “Myško”, “chuděrko” to allow the reader to get

the feeling of understanding of the animal (see Appendix).

The autumn atmosphere and expectations of upcoming winter are interlaced in the

poem evoking chilly sensory experience to the reader. Gilbert Burns, brother of the poet,

wrote that this poem was composed while Burns was ploughing a field in the autumn (Burns

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and Nicolas 128). Knowing the context and paying attention to the imagery, it is almost

possible to smell the soil in the air and feel the autumn chill.

The purpose of the poem is to draw the attention to the importance of respecting all

living creatures and nature in general. The author expresses friendly compassion with nature

using diminutives of natural elements. The poem also compares a human destiny to the one of

the animal. While identifying with the animal, the “earth-born companion”, at one moment,

the attention turns to the humankind at the end of the poem claiming the human life is more

difficult since humans think about the future. The message regarding the sorrow rising from

broken nature’s social union, or in other words, from the change in the relationship between

seemingly stronger and weaker individuals, does not have to point only at nature being at

human’s mercy, but also at humans behaving disrespectfully to each other; “humans at

humans’ mercy”, so to speak. This idea influenced many people including authors such as

John Steinbeck. One possible explanation of the fame of the poem can be seen in its

universality which might be illustrated by the fact that its thoughts are immediately applicable

to today’s society.

5.2 My Heart’s in the Highlands

My Heart's in the Highlands

My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here,

My heart's in the Highlands, a-chasing the deer;

Chasing the wild-deer, and following the roe,

My heart's in the Highlands, wherever I go.

Farewell to the Highlands, farewell to the North,

The birth-place of Valour, the country of Worth;

Wherever I wander, wherever I rove,

The hills of the Highlands for ever I love.

Farewell to the mountains, high-cover'd with snow,

Farewell to the straths and green vallies below;

Farewell to the forests and wild-hanging woods,

Farewell to the torrents and loud-pouring floods.

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My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here,

My heart's in the Highlands, a-chasing the deer;

Chasing the wild-deer, and following the roe,

My heart's in the Highlands, wherever I go. (Burns, “My Heart's in the Highlands”)

Collecting local songs on his tours in the Highlands in 1787 stirred up Burns’

patriotism and inspired him in creating poems such as My Heart's in the Highlands (“Follow

the Path of Robert Burns”). Through the language, imagery, and forms used in the poem,

Burns expresses his proud relationship to the Scottish Highlands, and uses nature as a

symbol, a stand-in, for a complex and partially abstract idea of homeland. The

significance of the poem is well presented by the fact that this poem was chosen by HRH The

Prince of Wales, known as the Duke of Rothesay in Scotland, as one of the two he read

publicly to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the poet’s birth (Khan).

The song was written in 1789 as a reaction to Burns’ tours in the Highlands which was

his first encounter with the wild beauty of Scottish mountain ranges dominating the region

(“Robert Burns: Works Written in 1789”). The most important companion on the tour was the

scenery of uncultivated grandeur, and the magnificence of nature influenced the poem.

The speaker seems to be the poet himself. In 1789, Burns moves with his family to

Dumfries, a city in the Lowlands (“Robert Burns – Biography”). He recollects memories from

his trip to the Highlands and expresses in the poem the strong feeling of pride and a sense of

belonging the place left inside him. The tone of the poem leaves the reader with feelings of

admiration of the natural beauties as well as nostalgia and regret from not being in the

Highlands. The sense of belonging and the regret are expressed in the line “My heart’s in the

Highlands, my heart is not here,” whose repetition emphasizes the patriotic feelings.

For the reader to understand the context of the poem, it is important to mention the

seventeenth and eighteenth century rebellions led by Highlanders loyal to the Stuarts. They

believed the hereditary rights of the king are inalienable. They felt they had to protect their

land, habits, religion, their way of life, and not accept the House of Hanover as the rulers.

However, the English crushed the Scots in the middle of the eighteenth century. The

Highlanders were disarmed, and kilts and bagpipes outlawed. This defeat and consequent

actions forced many Highlanders to emigrate and leave their homeland (“A Very Brief

History of Scotland”). The farewell poem to the homeland is not only Burns’ reaction to his

own geographical separation from the place he considered a representation of Scotland, his

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homeland, but also a reaction to the hundreds of Highlanders who were forced to leave their

home.

Burns reacted to the situation of the eighteenth century oppression of Highlanders in

spite of a threat of penalty, and knowing these poems will be omitted from his poetry editions.

In the poem The Jolly Beggars: John Highlandman, already mentioned in this thesis, Burns

tells a story of a Highlander “faithfu' to his clan” and “With his philibeg an' tartan plaid” who

was sent for his loyalty to the clan and wearing kilt to a penal colony, among thieves, forgers,

and housebreakers (Sibbald, “Robert Burns and 18th Century”). In both poems, Burns was

communicating, though mainly in a private circle of people he trusted, his sympathy to the

Highlands.

In My Heart’s in the Highlands, however, Burns does not openly criticise the society

and the oppressive measures of the government as he does in a satirical poem A Dream in

which he says, “Thoughts, words and deeds, the statute blames with reason: / But surely

Dreams were ne'er indicted Treason!” (Sibbald, “Robert Burns and 18th Century”). My

Heart’s in the Highlands rather elevates the beauties of the land, the fact that the Scottish

people have a lot to be proud of, and expresses deep sadness from being parted. The sadness

is even more emphasized in the translation of the poem by Jiří Valja who begins the Czech

version with the original second stanza “Farewell to the Highlands” and parting with the land.

Josef Václav Sládek keeps the original order in his translation of this poem (see Appendix).

The word choice could be characterized as persuasive but simple and straightforward,

and expressions with strong meanings are used. The whole line “The birth-place of Valour,

the country of Worth;” (6) depicting mental picture of the nation has deep strength and shows

respect for bravery of those born in the country, the Highlanders. This, along with the rich

description of the beauty of the Highlands especially in the third stanza, makes clear why to

be proud of the Highlands. A word “wild” is repeated in different contexts, “wild-deer”,

“wild-hanging woods”, to demonstrate the inherent beauty of the nature in the Highlands and

also the unrestrained human nature of its people. The line “Chasing the wild-deer, and

following the roe,” (3) can be then seen metaphorically as the effort to achieve freedom

together with a family referring to the Highlanders leaving their homes. The pattern of the

poem follows a form of a song with two rhyming couplets in four four-line stanzas and first

and final stanza repeating as chorus. This allows the text to flow easily and musicality of the

poem is further enhanced by heavily used alliteration such as in “My Heart’s in the

Highlands, My heart is not here” (1,13). Except for serving the musicality of the poem, the

alliteration also leads the reader to identify the word heart with the Highlands.

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The concrete images of different natural beauties of the Highlands are chosen to

highlight the grandeur of the land and to help create the symbol for homeland. “The

mountains”, “the straths and green vallies”, “the forests”, “the torrents and loud-pouring

floods”, “the hills of the Highlands” are elements accompanied by intensifying characteristics

such as “wild-hanging”, “loud-pouring” emphasizing even more the magnificence of the

natural treasures. While reading the lines depicting these natural elements almost

picturesquely, one thinks of Scotland as of the most beautiful country. Moreover, the use of

these adjectives creates an image of unrestrained country with lush nature, fertile valleys, and

proud people.

The poetic structure in the form of a song contributes to clearness of the message of

the poem. The audience to which the work is dedicated is a common man and thus the

simplicity and directness of the language and flow provided by the song features help to better

understand and to memorize the poem which was crucial for its distribution in Burns’ times.

The length consistency of the stanzas and lines and no diversion from the pattern serves this

purpose as well. The natural word order and logical completion of a thought on each line

supported by clear usage of also contributes to easiness of the poem for understanding. The

rhyming couplets are divided by a semi-colon, lines within the couplet by a comma and one

stanza stands for one sentence. This is further supported by the consistent use of present

simple tense and almost no verbs. “My heart’s in the Highlands, my heart is not here,”; the

simplicity of the syntactical choices enhances the perception of permanence of the statement.

The overall melodiousness of the poem and its strong message inspired Bob Dylan to

borrow the title for his song The Highlands, in which he predicted he would end up in

Scotland one day (Cramb). The idea of homeland and the strength of the feelings connected to

the concept inspired also William Saroyan who borrowed not only the title, but also music of

Burns’ poetry for his play My heart’s in the Highlands (Cody and Sprinchorn 943). The play

was introduced in times of turmoil in 1939. It deals with the topic of the Depression era, but

the plot is less important than the sentiments and ideas conveyed. According to Babakhanyan,

the title of the play, the notion of hearts being “in the Highlands”, refers to the longing for

one’s native land, no matter where one is (gtd. in Arkun). Babakhanyan adds that William

Saroyan’s own heart was buried after his death in Yerevan; therefore in this case, Saroyan

literally made sure his heart ended up in the highlands, at home.

Robert Burns in My Heart’s in the Highlands uses aspects of nature to symbolize

homeland. The abstract idea of one’s home is in the poem transformed into a concrete picture

by lively images describing nature and a certain place in Scotland. The depiction of grandeur

23

of the Highlands, its magnificent scenery together with its “valiant” people, brings about

feelings of pride and belongingness to the reader. The literary devices are selected by the

author in a way to make the poem understandable and to support its musicality; particularly in

the third stanza where the speaker repeatedly bids farewell to all the striking natural elements

of the Highlands. The message of the poem can be formulated in a statement, “Even though I

cannot be in the Highlands, I am proud of my country, and my heart will always be there”.

This message influenced and inspired many people who return to this poem in uneasy times,

and many authors used the central idea of the poem in their works.

5.3 The Rosebud

The Rosebud

A rosebud by my early walk,

Adown a corn-enclosed bawk,

Sae gently bent its thorny stalk

All on a dewy morning.

Ere twice the shades o' dawn are fled,

In a' its crimson glory spread,

And drooping rich the dewy head,

It scents the early morning.

Within the bush her covert nest

A little linnet fondly prest,

The dew sat chilly on her breast

Sae early in the morning.

She soon shall see her tender brood

The pride, the pleasure o' the wood,

Amang the fresh green leaves bedew'd,

Awauk the early morning.

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So thou, dear bird, young Jeany fair,

On trembling string or vocal air,

Shalt sweetly pay the tender care

That tents thy early morning.

So thou, sweet Rosebud, young and gay,

Shalt beauteous blaze upon the day,

And bless the Parent's evening ray

That watch'd thy early morning. (Burns, “The Rosebud”)

The Rosebud is a song written in 1788 which is the time belonging to the “Edinburg

years” of Robert Burns (“Robert Burns – Biography”). At this time Burns arrives in

Edinburgh, where he is welcomed by a circle of friends. The poet writes this poem in a tribute

to a twelve-years-old daughter of one of his friends. This poem uses the element of nature,

the rosebud, as a symbol of youth and the natural beauty of maturing and growing up.

The concept of growing up is symbolically expressed again as the linnet, a little bird, and its

brood. This broadens the message to respect and gratitude to parents.

The speaker is the poet himself and is personally involved in the happening of the

poem since it was during his “early walk” down the country lane when he saw the rosebud.

The tone of the poem is developed by the usage of characteristics connected to freshness of

morning and youth such as “dewy”, “crimson”, and “chilly”. The mood the poem creates in

the reader is pleasant and allows him to almost feel the freshness of early morning air in the

countryside. At the ending of the poem the mood changes slightly since it encourages “the

rosebud” to express thanks and respect to its protectors. Hearing several versions of musical

adaptation of the song makes the reader understand better the jolly, sweet, but also emotional

and sensitive impression of the song. There is no spiritual, physical, moral or philosophical

conflict depicted in the poem and the text is caressing the soul from the beginning to the end.

In October 1787, Robert Burns completed his highland tour. He then lodged in a house

of William Cruikshank, a classics master at Edinburgh High School, in two attic rooms,

staying until February 1788 when he returns to Mauchline (Wilkie, “His Life In His Letters”

212). Jane Cruikshank was the twelve-years-old daughter of Burns’ landlord. She was a fine

musician and singer and helped him with his musical compositions. Robert Burns addressed

her as “the sweet little rose-bud”. The Rosebud is not the only poem dedicated to Jane. 'To

Miss Cruikshank' is a poem written in 1789 paying tribute to Jane’s youth and beauty once

25

again. As it is shown in the extract of first two line of the poem (Burns, “To Miss

Cruickshank”), the rosebud symbol is used here as well in “Beauteous rose-bud, young and

gay, / Blooming on thy early May” (1-2).

Robert Burns mentioned Jane in all his letters to her father. In the letter of March 3rd,

1788, a letter of thanks for his three month stay with Cruikshank in Edinburgh, Burns writes,

“…so I shall only beg my best, kindest, kindest compliments to my worthy Hostess, and the

sweet little Rose-bud” (qtd. in “Letter to William Cruikshank”).

The word choice and the usage of the Scottish dialect contribute to the musicality of

the poem and its personal tone. Particular words and their connotations support consistency of

the poem and its meaning. The word “morning” is repeated in every stanza as “early

morning”, or “dewy morning”. It serves not only as a refrain of the song contributing to its

melodiousness, but also as an emphasis of the association the word evokes – youth,

beginning, freshness. There is also the opposite of the word “morning” in the last stanza,

“And bless the Parent’s evening ray” (23). The word “evening” here is a symbol of ending,

more precisely, old age. In the second stanza, the poet also expresses how quickly the

maturity comes saying “Ere twice the shades o’dawn are fled…” (5). Two days were enough

for the bud to become a blossom.

A lovely example of oxymoron is present in the third line of the first stanza “Sea

gently bent its thorny stalk” which might be an allusion to seeming helplessness of the youth.

Sládek (see Appendix) omits the word “thorny” and the whole oxymoron in his Czech

translation of the poem completely which, in my opinion, looses a bit of the dynamicity.

Another word contributing to the meaning of the poem is the word “bird” and related “linnet”,

“nest”, “brood”. A bird has many connotations and in the case of this poem it is used as a

symbol of purity and innocence. It might be for this connotation why there is a notable

presence of birds in English poetry, particularly from the Romantic age onwards

(Mohammedfahmi Saeed 11). Moreover, the speaker compares Jeany to the bird because of

her young ringing voice when saying, “So thou, dear bird, young Jeany fair, On trembling

string or vocal air” (17-18).

The poem was written as a song so it operates with identifiable rhythm. The first three

lines of each stanza rhyme. The last line of each stanza then serves as a refrain. Lack of

simple alliteration and the initial rhyme is substituted by a word repetition which contributes

to the musicality of the poem. The repetition of the word “morning” at the end of each stanza

also emphasizes the idea of beginning and the idea thus becomes more noticeable to the

reader.

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The sensory experience evoked by concrete images in the poem contributes to

understanding of the work. The vividness, the images the reader sees while reading the poem,

work as layers added to simple ideas. The author does not use complex terminology and the

meaning is clear. The sensory layers pull the reader deeper in the meaning of the poem. “The

word picture” sets the tone and ambience of the poem and leaves the reader caught up in the

flow of song (“Poem by Robert Burns 'The Rosebud'”). The reader appears in the early

summer countryside in a cornfield with a linnet on a dewy hedge. An image of morning is

repeated which emphasizes the feeling of purity.

The poem does not follow any specific formal poetic structure. Some sources call The

Rosebud a poem and claim it was written in 1787 (“A Rose-Bud By My Early Walk”), and

some authors call it a song and believe it was written in 1788 (“The Rosebud”). In any case,

the poem has musical features and it was accompanied by a melody. It is believed that the

composer of this melody was David Schiller. (“Poem by Robert Burns 'The Rosebud'”)

There are six stanzas with four lines moving smoothly. Every three lines of each

stanza rhyme which causes the musical effect. The rhyme does not change which allows the

text and the poem move smoothly. There are no syntactical anomalies changing the ideas in

the poem which corresponds with the theme of the poem and the word order is natural – a

simple tribute to a young girl. There are two words in the last two stanzas with capitals –

Jeany and the Rosebud. This further denotes that the rosebud and Jeany means the same in the

poem.

On August 26, 1788, one London newspaper, the Gazetteer, announced, “We have

been favoured with some productions of Robert Burns, the Scots ploughman, the simplicity of

which every reader of taste will admire” (322). This was followed by the poem “A Rose bud

by an early walk”, “SONG, / Written by R. Burns” (Werkmeister 322). Although this

newspaper recognized the beauty of the poem and reprinted it as an excerpt of the Kilmarnock

Edition with the announcement I absolutely agree with, not much attention was paid to this

piece of Robert Burns’ work.

In essence, Burns in the poem sensitively compares the process of growing up to dew

bedecked morning, a rosebud turning into blossom, and a linnet in her nest with its brood. A

young girl, Jeany, is compared to a young linnet which is to leave the nest very soon. She

will, herself, soon burst forth in beauty and, later, blesses her parents later years. Morning

becomes midday, the little birds adults, and the rosebud becomes a flower. All the natural

elements to which Jeany is compared were selected with delicacy and the overall natural

setting creates one amiable and peaceful image. Robert Burns is known as the National Bard

27

of Scotland; however, this poem as well as quite substantial part of his work is not very

familiar to the wider public. It is shame because in case of this poem, the audience looses the

opportunity to enjoy straightforward and pleasant poetry full of accurate and well-worded

natural parallels.

5.4 I Love My Jean

I Love My Jean

Of a' the airts the wind can blaw,

I dearly like the West;

For there the bony Lassie lives,

The Lassie I lo'e best:

There's wild-woods grow, and rivers row,

And mony a hill between;

But day and night my fancy's flight

Is ever wi' my Jean.

I see her in the dewy flowers,

I see her sweet and fair;

I hear her in the tunefu' birds,

I hear her charm the air:

There's not a bony flower that springs

By fountain, shaw, or green;

There's not a bony bird that sings

But minds me o' my Jean. (Burns, “I Love My Jean”)

I Love My Jean is a song written by Burns in 1787, and which became part of the

Scots Musical Museum published in 1803. The Scots Musical Museum is the most important

of the numerous eighteenth and nineteenth century collections of Scottish songs, and Robert

Burns was enlisted as contributor and editor by James Johnson, the author of the project.

Burns started collecting songs from various sources, often expanding or revising them, while

including much of his own work (“The Scots Musical Museum”). The poem I Love My Jean

can be defined as a “nature love poem”. Natural elements in the poem serve as a metaphor

28

to express how it feels to love and as a tribute to Burns’ wife. The natural setting further

reflects the poet’s mood and completes the enamoured picture the reader imagines

reading the poem.

The poem was written as a compliment to Jean Armour, Mrs Burns, after their

wedding. The first mention of the wedding was in a letter to James Smith dated April 28th,

1788. (Sibbald, “Songs for Weddings”). In the letter Burns reveals he got married saying:

There is, you must know, a certain clean-limbed, handsome, bewitching young hussy

of your acquaintance, to whom I have lately and privately given a matrimonial title to

my corpus.... I intend to present Mrs Burns with a printed shawl, in article of which I

daresay you have variety: 'tis my first present to her since 1 have irrevocably called

her mine... (“Smith, James. (1765-c. 1823)”)

On a copy of the Scots Musical Museum, Burns wrote a comment in which he revealed

he composed the poem out of compliment to Mrs Burns and that it was during their

honeymoon. The exact period is, however, hard to specify because Burns’ relationship with

Jean was fairly irregular with several intermissions. Nevertheless, Jean Armour was the focus

of at least 14 of Burns’ poems. (“The Scots Musical Museum”)

To understand the message of the poem it is viable to know the story behind it. Being

acquainted with the context of the poem changes the understanding of the speaker’s attitude,

and in this case allows the reader to identify the speaker with the author. Robert Burns’

relationship with Jean Armour lasted from 1784, when they began seeing each other, until his

death in 1796 (Smith). Jean Armour bore Burns nine children in ten years, the last born on the

day of the poet's funeral, and becomes the focus of at least fourteen of Burns’ poems.

Nevertheless, I Love My Jean is by some authors considered the most fetching of them since

Burns states here that Jean is the “lassie that he loves best”. The poet's famed love of the

opposite sex, however, made his life and the relationship with Jane full of ups and downs.

(Smith)

The day before his thirtieth birthday, in 1789, Burns wrote to a friend Alexander

Cunningham, “I myself can affirm, both from bachelor and wedlock experience, that Love is

the Alpha and the Omega of human enjoyment.” (“A selection of Burns love poems”)

This was Burns’ mantra and allowed him to create, according to Smith, “a remarkable

canon” of universal love poetry which has found a place in the hearts of millions around the

world for its truth and beauty. Burns met Jean in early 1784, when he was twenty-five and she

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was, at seventeen, a shapely brunette and one of The Belles of Mauchline, a poem written in

1784 (Linden Bicket). This song is in praise of six of the Mauchline's most attractive young

women, who have caught the poet's eye. The last line of the final stanza clearly suggests that

Jean Armour was “the jewel” for Burns:

Miss Miller is fine, Miss Markland's divine,

Miss Smith she has wit, and Miss Betty is braw:

There's beauty and fortune to get wi' Miss Morton,

But Armour's the jewel for me o' them a'. (Burns qtd. in Linden Bicket)

Two years later, in 1786, Jean had become pregnant with his first child. Jean’s parents

were not sure of Burns prospects, and even though Burns wanted to marry Jean, her parents

sent her away. Smith claims it was because James Armour, a successful stonemason, would

not wed his daughter to a destitute ploughman who was a philanderer as well.

A complicated sequence of legal wrangles followed since the situation changed after

Burns was called to admit his role in the affair. Meanwhile Burns was to get involved with

Mary Campbell and Agnes McLehose before he finally married Jean. Burns’ love life and his

whole life in general can be tracked in his poems. Mary Campbell is the “Highland Mary”

from his poems and Agnes McLehose is “Clarinda”, to whom many Burns’ letters were

addressed. (Smith; “A selection of Burns love poems”)

Burns turned to Mary after he had been deserted by Jean; unfortunately, Mary died in

childbirth in October 1786, which devastated the poet. In the September 1786 Jean had given

birth to twins. In July 1786, Burns’ first collection of poems, the Kilmarnock Edition, was

published and his status in the world began improved. Jane became pregnant again but Burns

being the man of fame now enjoyed the attention of other woman from higher society and

meets Agnes. She was attractive and cultured but their relationship remained platonic which is

probably the reason why Burns’ passion faded away, Burns finally married Jean and applied

for a position as Exciseman. (Smith)

Although Burns struggled with the decision to marry, his most admired love poems

were written about Jean and after their marriage including one of his most touching lyrics

John Anderson, My Jo, celebrating the enduring love of an aging couple (Smith). Jean

Armour had to be a very generous woman willing to put up with her husband’s life style.

After accepting Burns’ illegitimate daughter in their family, Jean remarked “Our Robbie

should have had twa wives” (qtd. in “A selection of Burns love poems”).

30

The power of the poem I Love My Jean lies in its simplicity and purity. There is no

need to try to discover hidden meaning in the words or untangle complex allusions. The tone

of the poem is consistent throughout the whole poem, and the diction and Scottish dialect in

which the poem is written make it flowing and smooth from the beginning till the end. The

delicacy and lovable joy in the words with no unpleasant tension predestined the poem to be

popular as a wedding song (Sibbald, “Songs for Weddings”).

Metaphorical meaning is present when comparing Jean to the natural elements such as

“the dewy flowers” and “the tunefu’ birds”. A form of comparison is present also in the

second part of the final stanza where the speaker expresses that he sees his “Lassie” in every

“bony flower”, “by fountain, shaw, or green”, and in every “bony bird that sings”. Other

aspects of nature are present in the poem as a background to reflect the mood of the whole

poem and drag the reader in the moment. The usage of active verbs in the “wild-woods grow,

and rivers row” support the action and the dynamicity of the feelings.

Lines and stanzas are consistently the same length and use both, internal as well as end

rhyme. Rhymes are present between second and fourth and then sixth and eight line of both

stanzas. The rhythm and musicality of the poem is enhanced by alliteration and internal

rhymes such as “wild-woods grow, and rivers row”, “But day and night my fancy’s flight”.

Repetition, such as “I see her…”, “I hear her”, contributes again to the flow of the song and

serves as a refrain. The logical units are divided by punctuation in a form of commas, colons

and semi-colons. This might be a little bit confusing since the reader has to decipher what

punctuation mark means longer pause and which one is here from the grammatical point of

view.

The author uses concrete images to heighten the reader’s senses to allow him to see

and imagine authentically what the poet did when writing the poem. The speaker “sees her”,

“hears her”, the flowers are “dewy”, the “rivers row”. Thanks to this usage of language the

reader experiences sensory input enhancing the perception of the poem and casting up a

complete picture in the reader’s mind. The aural images such as “bird that sings”, “tunefu’

birds”, and “rivers row” are important here.

This poem is not celebrating nature as such nor is welcoming season or certain place.

What qualifies this poem to be included in the category of nature poems, or as I suggest at the

beginning of this analysis, “a nature love poem”? A nature poem broadly defined by Bugeja is

“A poem in which nature plays an integral role…” (43). Nature is what ties this poem

together and provides the setting. “The West” is where the “Lassie” lives and the speaker

celebrates the beauties of the piece of land when describing it and comparing with Jean.

31

Both Czech translators of Burns’ work, Jiří Valja and Josef Václav Sládek, chose this

poem for their collections. It is interesting that Sládek translates the first line omitting the

“wind” element completely (see Appendix). From “Of a' the airts the wind can blaw” it

becomes “Of all the corners in the world” (Jacks, 287). The translation loses a certain feeling

of carefreeness and naturalness leaving the wind out. However, the rest of the translation

maintains, according to Jacks, who reviewed criticaly translations of songs and poems of

Robert Burns in other tongues, is uniform high standard. Jacks does not mention, however, in

his critical analysis of translations that Sládek, unlike Valja, does not mention “Jean” at all.

This might make the poem more universal for readers, but with this translation the poem loses

the personal connection with Burns.

Robert Burns in I Love My Jean uses nature to illustrate the love for his wife and to

support the appealing atmosphere by concrete aspects of nature. Although he portrays love

with concrete images, he leaves enough room for the reader and his own imagination. It is

what Robert Burns masters and makes his poems so touchable, personal and universal at the

same time. Similarly to The Rosebud, I Love my Jean does not belong to well-known and

widely analyzed poems written by Robert Burns’. The attributes these poems share are their

simplicity, expression of fondness, and positive impression. Even the natural elements used to

illustrate or accompany the theme are same or very similar, mentioning “dewy flowers” and

“dewy morning”, singing birds are present in both poems, Jean “charms the air” and the

rosebud “scents the early morning”. Nevertheless, the most important aspect the two poems

share is that they are devoted to a concrete person whose name is mentioned in the poems. In

general, therefore, it seems that poems sharing these attributes do not belong to those most

famous and studied.

5.5 Address to the Woodlark

Address to the Woodlark

O stay, sweet warbling woodlark stay,

Nor quit for me the trembling spray,

A hapless lover courts thy lay,

Thy soothing, fond complaining.

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Again, again that tender part,

That I may catch thy melting art;

For surely that wad touch her heart

Wha kills me wi' disdaining.

Say, was thy little mate unkind,

And heard thee as the careless wind?

Oh, nocht but love and sorrow join'd,

Sic notes o' woe could wauken!

Thou tells o' never-ending care;

O'speechless grief, and dark despair:

For pity's sake, sweet bird, nae mair!

Or my poor heart is broken! (Burns, “Address to the Woodlark”)

This song was written in 1795, a year before Burns’ death, for the purpose of George

Thomson’s Select Collection of Scottish Airs. I have chosen this poem as the opposite to I

Love My Jean to illustrate the extent to which nature and its parts are used in Burns’ poetry. It

served as a metaphor for the feelings of love and celebrated the poet’s wife in I Love My Jean

analyzed in previous chapter. Contrarily, in the Address to the Woodlark, the “sweet bird”

accompanies the reader through a highly melancholic poem expressing unhappiness,

sorrow, and disillusionment with unrequited love.

In my research, I did not come across any other analysis or summary dealing with this

poem in detail. Burns himself did not comment on the poem and the only note he made in a

letter to George Thomson, in which he sends the poem, was “Let me know, your very first

leisure, how you like this song” (Burns and Currie 227). Analyses of Burns’ work usually

focuses on several most famous poems such as To a Mouse, Auld Lang Syne or Tam o'

Shanter (“Robert Burns Timeline”). It is pity that a poem as Address to the Woodlark does not

get the attention it deserves.

The poem is highly melancholic and since the entire Burns’ work was inspired by his

life, I tried to find specific reasons for writing these lines full of sorrow. Robert Burns was

married when the poem was written, but it never stopped him from meeting other women.

During his Dumfries years, he meets Maria Riddell; a young, educated, witty woman (Fowler

36). By 1793, the two had become “first of Friends”, and the author valued Maria as the

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“most accomplished of Women” (Burns qtd. in McLean). Their friendship was interrupted

when Burns was banished from her sister-in-law's house. The reasons are not clear, but it was

probably because of Burns’ inappropriate behaviour towards Maria while drunk at a dinner

party (“Riddell, Maria Banks Woodley”). Maria afterwards likely felt obliged to withhold the

friendship. Burns’ reaction to Maria’s rejection was long-sustained and occasionally

dishonourable. He wrote to Maria, probably in January 1794:

If it is true that 'Offences come only from the heart', before you I am guiltless. To

admire, esteem, prize and adore you, as the most accomplished of Women, and the

first of Friends — if these are crimes, I am the most offending thing alive. (Burns qtd.

in “Riddell, Maria Banks Woodley”)

Heartbroken lines alternated with satires and more radical and open expressions of his

offended feelings. An example is this epigram titled Pinned to Mrs R…’s Carriage:

If you rattle along like your Mistress’s tongue,

Your speed will outrival the dart:

But, a fly for your load, you’ll break down on the road,

If your stuff be as rotten ‘s her heart. (Burns qtd. in Fowler 37)

Although Burns and Maria became friendly again in 1795, Address to the Woodlark

could have been inspired by the angry and miserable feelings of cold neglect Burns’

experienced during the previous several months (“Riddell, Maria Banks Woodley”).

The poem is told in the present tense and in the first person which emphasises the

personal tone and currency of the words. From what we know about the circumstances of

Burns’ life during 1794 – 1795, I suggest the speaker is the poet himself. It is clear from the

seventh line that the speaker is a man, and the sorrow is caused by a rejection of a woman, not

vice versa. The suffering of the speaker and unpleasant characteristics of the one who caused

the sorrow is clear the most from lines “Wha kills me wi’ disdaining.” (8) and “And heard

thee as the careless wind?” (10).

The overall tone is melancholic. The sad feelings of unrequited love are precisely

described as the “love and sorrow join’d”. The poem seems to function as a self-torment, and

the tone of the poem is further developed by tormented language. The tone progresses

together with the internal tension the reader feels at the ending of the poem. The last two

34

stanzas are closed by exclamation marks which contributes to the progressive impression and

culminates with the final line “For pity’s sake, sweet bird, nae mair!”.

“Thy soothing, fond complaining” voice of the bird makes the reader imagine

plaintive sound combining contradicting characteristics almost as in “love and sorrow join’d”.

The mood of the speaker becomes more sombre as the poem comes to its end. While

beginning with moving song of the woodlark, the melancholic mood progresses to the

“speechless grief, and dark despair”. Even though the speaker seeks solace with the woodlark

at the beginning, and asks him to sing “again, again that tender part”, he immerses deeper in

his grief and at the end begs the bird to stop “Or my poor heart is broken” (16).

It is not clear whether Burns did not mistake a woodlark for some other bird since they

are extremely rare in Scotland. In any case, it is said that a woodlark is able to sing for hours

his “soothing, fond complaining” melodies, no matter if it is perched on a tree or in a great

height where it is able to remain stationary (“The Wood Lark”). Burns is copying the

melancholic singing of the bird in the poem. The alliteration is present enhancing the

musicality of the poem and supporting the impression of listening to the bird’s singing such as

in “O stay, sweet warbling woodlark, stay.” (1), “Again, again, that tender part” (5). Stanzas

and lines are consistently the same length. First three lines of each stanza rhyme. In addition,

the last lines of the first two (“complaining”, “disdaining”) and the last two stanzas

(“wauken”, “broken”) verse together. The purpose of this rhyme scheme is to let the poem

continue smoothly even if not sung as a song and to close the stanzas in logical units.

To create imagery, it is not important what one sees in this poem, but rather what he

feels and hears. Nature in this poem reflects the mood of the speaker, and describes personal

feelings out of the context of what is seen in nature. The sensory experience evoked by this

poem is sorrowful, and is raised to a power by bird’s singing the reader hears in his mind

reading the poem. It is beneficial to listen to the tune Burns chose for this song, a traditional

Scottish song Loch Erroch Side. Its “soothing” melody completes the experience (O'Rourke).

According to Doggett, Burns sought inspiration from “the effortless lyric expressions

of the singing birds” (550). The tradition linking bird songs to poetry reaches back to classical

poetry, where the connotation with love started (548). It evolved in more general source of

inspiration; something as a symbol of poetry. Doggett also claims that when a bird appeared

in early Romantic poetry, it was presented as a creature, an instance, and a voice, rather than a

symbol of poetry (551). This definition might be fully applied to Address to the Woodlark.

The poem Address to the Woodlark dealing with the sad feelings of broken heart

illustrates the wide range of functions nature and natural elements adopt in Burns’ work. As

35

opposed to the previous two poems, The Rosebud and I Love My Jean, nature in this poem

serves as the means of evoking melancholic mood and even as its main source. The animal

illustrating feelings of love and appreciation in the poem I Love My Jean and purity and

innocence in The Rosebud, turns into the centre of the speaker’s suffering here and causes the

melancholy to become unbearable. The central role of the woodlark in this poem lies also in

the fact the speaker addresses his monologue to him. The natural elements in this poem do not

primarily help to create the general setting, nor do they help the imagination of the reader to

visualise the scene. More than visualisation, the other sensory inputs provided by the singing

of the bird are important. As Dogget says, a bird has been a source of poetic inspiration for

hundreds of years. In this case, it inspired the poet to bring about, through description of the

bird’s melancholic singing, feelings of frustration from unrequited love.

5.6 The Lazy Mist

The Lazy Mist

The lazy mist hangs from the brow of the hill,

Concealing the course of the dark-winding rill;

How languid the scenes, late so sprightly, appear,

As Autumn to Winter resigns the pale year.

The forests are leafless, the meadows are brown,

And all the gay foppery of summer is flown:

Apart let me wander, apart let me muse,

How quick Time is flying, how keen Fate pursues.

How long I have liv'd - but how much liv'd in vain;

How little of life's scanty span may remain:

What aspects, old Time, in his progress, has worn;

What ties, cruel Fate, in my bosom has torn.

How foolish, or worse, till our summit is gain'd!

And downward, how weaken'd, how darken'd, how pain'd!

Life is not worth having with all it can give,

For something beyond it poor man sure must live. (Burns, “The Lazy Mist”)

36

This song was written during one of Burns’ most productive years in 1788 as a part of

the Scots Musical Museum (“The Lazy Mist”). Some authors use the title The Fall of the Leaf

and call the work a poem from the beginning leaving the fact the piece was originally meant

as a song aside (“The Fall of the Leaf”). In this little known piece, the chilly autumn

atmosphere evoking a melancholy mood leaves the speaker thinking about not making use of

his life so far and the time we have left to live. Nature in this poem serves as a means of

depiction of anguish, the setting evoking mournful atmosphere, and as a metaphor for

the natural life cycle.

Burns’ talent lies in his ability to breathe the melodiousness in the poem, and it is not

necessary to hear the tunes to feel the mood of the poem. Nevertheless, I looked up the tune

assigned to this song which was given the same name as the song The Lazy Mist, and it

slightly changed my perception of the poem. One would expect sombre melody

accompanying the serious tone of the poem, but the tune Burns chose for this song and in the

version on CD Complete Songs of Robert Burns is actually a soft Irish melody which reduces

the load of the words in the poem.

When analyzing the context in which this poem was written, I did not come across

anything particular that could cause this melancholic mood. Robert Burns once described to

his friend George Thompson the way his poetry came about and this poem seems to be sound

example of this process:

I walk out, sit down now & then, look out for objects in nature around me that are in

unison or harmony with the cogitations of my fancy & workings of my bosom;

humming every now & then the air with the verses I have framed; when I feel my

Muse (the deity or power of poetry) beginning to jade, I retire to the solitary fireside of

my study, & there commit my effusion to paper. (qtd. in “Robert Burns”)

It is true that by 1788, Mossgiel was becoming a losing concern. However, Robert was

able to help financially to his brother, he also took a long-term lease of a farm called Ellisland

near Dumfries, and finally got the permission to marry Jean (“Robert Burns and Auld Lang

Syne”). I suggest this poem was created as a reflection of a life in general not arising from

one particular occasion. A substantial part of Burns’ life has been already covered in the

thesis, and it is clear that he was often in a state of emotional turmoil he imprinted in his work

later.

37

First lines set the melancholic tone of the poem. They present “languid scenes”, and

together with stating it is late autumn evoke tired and gloomy atmosphere. “Forests are

leafless, the meadows are brown”, nature is losing its colours, loosing lushness and life. The

moment is emphasized by comparison with “the gay foppery of summer”. The speaker in his

depressive mood ruminates on the fast pace in which “Time is flying” and “Fate pursues”.

Both Time and Fate are highlighted in the lines by capital letters and as the poem progresses

they are personified when given animated characteristics such as “old Time” and “cruel Fate”.

The speaker continues thinking about his life up to now, its triviality, and realizes there might

not be much time left to live when asking “How little of life’s scanty span may remain” (10).

The last stanza brings a little surprising aspect. The speaker compares getting to one’s summit

as foolish and the way down the top, which I do not see only as ageing but also as life after

reaching certain longed point, as “weaken’d, darken’d, how pain’d”. In last two line of the

stanza, however, he claims the man sure must live for something beyond the life, because just

life itself would not be worth it “with all it can give”. One might see it as a hopelessness of a

life and unhappiness with what a life brings. I see the last lines as a hope and faith for better

tomorrows.

All that Burns says about the authorship of this song is “This song is mine”, which

suggests he was particularly proud of this piece (Burns and Cunningham 323). In the Preface

of the second volume of the Museum, Burns says, that the songs in the volume are “all of

them the work of Scotsmen.” He tried to recover the old words where it was possible. He

notes that some might sneer at the simplicity of the poetry or music, but claims these are the

favourites of “Nature’s judges – the common people”. The song The Lazy Mist, even though

written in English, is said to be a favourite with the Scottish peasantry and the grave and

moralizing strain corresponds with the character of the people. (Burns and Cunningham 323 -

324)

Every two lines rhyme using the end rhyme. This serves as the main carrier of the

rhythm since other devices enhancing musicality of the poem such as alliteration are not

widely present here. Tension is present in the poem as the story progresses and makes the

reader to read the whole peace. The speaker becomes more and more disturbed and in the

middle of the final stanza this tension is highlighted by using exclamation marks. This use of

punctuation helps to create the effect of gradation of intensity of the message. The use of

active verbs and even continuous tense brings about the perception of being at the moment

and the reader can almost feel the time “flying”.

38

The word choice plays an important role. The author uses not only connotations tied to

“Autumn” and “Winter” as the final parts of a human life; he supports the imagery also by

wide use of melancholic autumnal adjectives such as “leafless” forests and “brown”

meadows, and compares it to “the gay foppery of summer”. The concrete images support the

visual as well as the sensory experience of the reader, since he can see, smell, feel, and

breathe the misty autumn atmosphere. It is interesting to note that “Autumn” and “Winter” are

capitalized whereas summer is not. The meaning I can see is that the capitalized seasons are

put on the level of Time and Fate in the poem, and summer is meant just as the part of a year.

Nature in this poem creates the overall setting evoking melancholic mood by using

autumnal elements. Through the course of the poem, the feelings of depression are piling up

when the speaker is rethinking his life. Natural elements help here to illustrate the natural life

cycle again with the help of seasonal analogy. The natural metaphor is further used when

comparing one’s life and the human life cycle in general to climbing up the summit and then,

in the latter part of life, weakly descending it. Robert Burns in The Lazy Mist makes use of

nature to elaborately present human feelings tied to rethinking the purpose of a life. Although

the author managed to incorporate this complex message in just two stanzas, he did so using

regular literary devices which allowed the piece to be acceptable to “common people”, and

the poem would certainly deserve more attention.

6. Conclusion

The focus of this thesis was to examine the theme of nature in the poetry of Robert

Burns. The major part of the thesis aimed at specifying the thematic and structural role of

nature and natural elements in selected poems.

The introductory part of the thesis acquaints the reader with the historical and natural

attributes of Scotland. It is not only the atmosphere of the eighteenth century what influenced

Burns’ work. The overall Scottish identity resulting from the haunting history and wild nature

is imprinted in his poetry. The social aspect of To a Mouse and patriotism presented in My

Heart’s in the Highlands are proofs of that. The following brief insight into the poet’s

biography clarifies approach of Robert Burns’ to life, which is consequently projected in his

poems. This part proved its worthiness especially in understanding poems regarding love,

namely I Love My Jean and Address to the Woodlark. The theoretical background is enclosed

by an introduction of the literary movement Burns pioneered, pre-romanticism, and a

39

definition of natural poetry is provided in this place to establish the framework for the

following analytical part.

The natural world has always been an important subject for poets and a significant

source of inspiration. In Burns’ poetry nature serves as much more than simply a passive

setting. Robert Burns combines structural, thematic, content, and expressional use of nature in

his poetry. Every poem analyzed in the final chapter deals with nature in a different way.

Although I deliberately selected poems which were diverse, the richness and variety with

which Burns employs nature in them is impressive and unanticipated.

Nature is an infinite source of inspiration; however, Burns manages to use even the

same natural elements in completely different roles without any sense of repetition. To a

Mouse deals with the issue of nature at human’s mercy and aims at drawing the attention to

the necessity of respecting all living creatures. In this poem the author communicates his

humanitarian views as well as his opinion on difficulties of human life. In My Heart's in the

Highlands Burns expresses the beauty of the Scottish Highlands and his proud feelings of

belongingness to the land through vivid and descriptive language using natural aspects.

Nature stands for the idea of homeland here. The rosebud in the poem of the same name

serves as a symbol of youth and beauty. An amiable comparison of different natural elements

undergoing the process of change is used to illustrate the beauty of maturing. Two of the

analyzed poems deal with the theme of love. In I Love My Jean, nature serves as a metaphor

of how it feels to love somebody. The author uses different aspects of nature to depict highly

romantic atmosphere. On the contrary, in the melancholic poem Address to the Woodlark, the

animal is given a central role to transfer the feelings of a broken heart on the reader through

its singing. The images used in the previous poem I Love My Jean and even in The Rosebud

are transformed to carry quite the opposite meaning here. In the final poem analyzed in this

thesis, The Lazy Mist, nature functions metaphorically as the natural life cycle, serves as a

means of portraying dissatisfaction with one’s life, and supports the overall depressive

atmosphere of the poem. The analyses showed not only Burns’ intimate relationship with the

natural world and his poetic qualities, but also the scope of inspiration nature provides.

One of the surprising findings was that there is very limited amount of secondary

sources dealing with most of the poems analyzed in this thesis. Considering the fact that

Robert Burns is known as the National Bard of Scotland and one of the symbols of the

country, I would expect his work to be discussed widely. The available analyses, however, are

often narrowed to several most famous poems. The two poems analyzed in this thesis

dedicated to a concrete person, I Love My Jean and The Rosebud, belong to the group of

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poems with almost no secondary sources to work with. One of the possible explanations could

be that the readers might not consider these poems “universal” since they are written to a

specific person. However, I must agree with Paul Moulton who claims that Burns’ specific

descriptions may actually make his poems more universal (51), and with Penny Fielding who

adds that the specific address creates a more human poetry and consequently a more universal

literature (qtd. in Moulton 51).

To sum up, the overall impression Robert Burns’ natural poetry has made on me

personally is overly positive. Reading these natural poems allowed me to disconnect from the

rush of the modern world. With the help of Burns’ imagination and particular artistry

reflecting on the character and experience of the Scottish, these poems helped to create the

heartening Scottish identity. John Burroughs said, “I go to nature to be soothed and healed,

and to have my senses put in order” (qtd. in “Quotes by John Burroughs”). Natural poetry

written by Robert Burns has the same effect.

41

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(1966): 322-35. Web. 7 Apr. 2013.

Wilkie, George Scott. Robert Burns - His Life In His Letters. N.p.: n.p., n.d. PDF.

Wilkie, George Scott. Understanding Robert Burns: Verse, Explanation, and Glossary.

Glasgow: Neil Wilson Pub., 2002. Print.

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Appendix

Czech Translations of the Analysed Poems

To a Mouse – Polní myšce by Josef Václav Sládek and Polní myšce by Jiří Valja I Love My Jean - Ze všech větrů světa by Jiří Valja and Všech úhlů světa by Josef Václav Sládek My Heart’s in the Highlands - Mé srdce je v horách by Josef Václav Sládek and Mé srdce je v horách by Jiří Valja The Rosebud - Růžové poupě by Josef Václav Sládek The Lazy Mist - Mlha by Josef Václav Sládek Address to the Woodlark – Slavíku by Josef Václav Sládek References:

Burns, Robert. “Darebné verše Roberta Burnse.” Trans. Jiří Valja. Praha: Státní nakladatelství

krásné literatury a umění, 1963. Print.

Burns, Robert. “Písně a balady.” Trans. Josef Václav Sládek. Praha: Státní nakladatelství

krásné literatury, hudby a umění, 1959. Print.

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To a Mouse Polní myšce (Sládek 124-125) Polní myšce (Valja 87-88)

Ty plachá, šedá myško malá, ó, jak jsi ty se polekala! Ne, netřeba, bys utíkala tak o své žití! Vždyť můž' jen otka neurvalá ti ublížiti. Mně žel, že člověk vládou svojí rve pásku, která tvorstvo pojí a v přírodě se vše ho bojí, — a zmíráš v strachu ty, jež jsi rodem družkou mojí a sestrou v prachu! Já vím, že kradeš někdy z žit, aj což, chuděrko — nutno žít! Z dvou mandelů si klásek vzít, nu, buď můj host: bych moh' si chleba umísit, mně zbylo dost! I z tvého domku strh' jsem krovy a z vetchých stěn si vítr loví, a z čeho nyní stavět nový než z ostřice? — Je za dveřmi sníh prosincový a vichřice. Když pustla pole a co kde, ty's viděla, jak zima jde a myslila, že budeš zde se hezky mít. — Tu třesk! pluh krutý projede tvůj teplý byt. Ta malá hrstka trávy, stlaní, tě stála krušné namáhání. — Teď vypuzena! za vše ani ti nezbyl kout, bys mohla přebýt sněhu vání a nezmrznout! Však, myško, také my to známe, jak ostražitost často klame; — plán nejlepší, jímž hlavu láme si člověk, myš — co z všeho zbude? — strasti samé a bol a tíž. A přec tvůj osud přešťasten! Ty pouze víš, čím zraní den: zrak můj však zpátky obrácen, ó, teskno tam! A přede mnou? — já hádám jen a hrůzu mám!

Zvířátko hebké, úzkostlivé, jsi strachem mrtvé víc než živé! Neprchej, abys v širé nivě

hledalo úkryt! Já nepřišel jsem loupeživě

otkou tě ubít! Lituju dost, že lidská vláda přírodní svazky roztrhává, člověk se hrůzou tvorstva stává,

a plna strachu nevidíš ve mně kamaráda

v smrti a prachu! Vím, občas si jdeš zaloupit, vždyť, chuděro, chceš taky žít! Však celý ten tvůj blahobyt

je spadlý klas, a požehnané snopy žit

mně nechalas! I domeček máš rozbořený! Věchýtky větrem rozneseny! Těžko je stavět nové stěny

teď bez ostřice! A v prosinci se čerti žení,

jsou fujavice! Vidělas pole pustnoucí, na dveře zimu tlukoucí, bylo ti lehko při srdci

v teploučkém skrytu. Pak prásk! Já zajel radlicí

do tvého bytu. Než lístky do kupy jsi dala, chuděro, co ses nahryzala! Teď vyhoštěna, myško malá,

jsi bez doupěte, kde vichřice bys přečkávala

v mrazivém světě! Ale v tom, myško, sama nejsi, vždyť i tvor sebepečlivější, člověk či myš, se často těší

přemoudrým plánem, a jsme pak ještě nešťastnější,

jestli se zklamem! A přece šťastnější jsi mne! Trápí tě jen zlo přítomné, však když můj zrak zpět pohlédne,

minulost drásá! A v budoucnosti tušené

nekyne spása!

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I Love My Jean

Všech úhlů světa (Sládek 128) Všech úhlů světa nejraděj ten západový mám, neb moje zlaté srdečko dlí za horami tam. Tam hvozdy jsou a řeky jdou a roste vřes a mech a v noc i den tam toužím jen k své nejmilejší z všech. Ji vidím v každé květině tak milou, sličnou tak, ji slyším, v doubrav tišině když mílo zpívá pták. Ba tolik nemá květinek ni louka, les a břeh, ni ptáčat, já co vzpomínek na nejmilejší z všech.

Ze všech větr ů světa (Valja 185) Já ze všech větrů světa mám západní nejradši. Tím směrem žije panenka nejdražší, nejsladší. Tam v klínu hor se vzpíná bor a dává řekám stín. Ať noc či den, já s ním svůj sen o drahé, sladké Jean. Vidím ji v květech zrosených, ten přelíbezný dar. Slyším ji v ptačím klokotu, když vzduch je plný čar. Každý květ, na nějž padne zrak na louce, pod křovím, a každý zpívající pták mi připomene Jean.

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My Heart's in the Highlands Mé srdce je v horách (Valja 186) Hory, buďte sbohem, sbohem, severe, kde se rodí mužné ctnosti veškeré! Ať kdekoli bloudím, kudy toulám se, Nezmizí mi naše kopce ze srdce. Mé srdce je v horách, zde jen smutek zná, Mé srdce je v horách, honí jelena, Jelena tam honí, vyslídí tam laň, Mé srdce je v horách, ať jdu tam či tam! Buďte sbohem, hory, které kryje sníh, Sbohem, úvaly a trávo v údolích, Sbohem, starý háji, lese divoký, Sbohem, bujné říčky, prudké potoky! Mé srdce je v horách, zde jen smutek zná, Mé srdce je v horách, honí jelena, Jelena tam honí, vyslídí tamlaň, Mé srdce je v horách, ať jdu tam či tam!

Mé srdce je v horách (Sládek 189) Mé srdce je v horách, zde stesk padá naň, mé srdce je v horách a honí tam laň; laň plachou tam honí, jde za srncem v háj, — mé srdce je v horách, ať světa jsem kraj. Buď, horský ty kraji, buď, Severe, zdráv, kde chrabrost se rodí, kde reků je mrav; kdekoliv bloudím a kdekoliv dlím, ty horské svahy jsou v světě mi vším. S bohem, vy hory, jež pokrývá sníh, s bohem, vy doly a zeleni v nich; s bohem ty háje i divoký les, s bohem ty slapy bouřící v tes! Mé srdce je v horách, zde stesk padá naň, mé srdce je v horách a honí tam laň; laň plachou tam honí, jde za srncem v háj, — mé srdce je v horách, ať světa jsem kraj.

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The Rosebud A rosebud by my early walk, Adown a corn-enclosed bawk, Sae gently bent its thorny stalk All on a dewy morning. Ere twice the shades o' dawn are fled, In a' its crimson glory spread, And drooping rich the dewy head, It scents the early morning. Within the bush her covert nest A little linnet fondly prest, The dew sat chilly on her breast Sae early in the morning. She soon shall see her tender brood The pride, the pleasure o' the wood, Amang the fresh green leaves bedew'd, Awauk the early morning. So thou, dear bird, young Jeany fair, On trembling string or vocal air, Shalt sweetly pay the tender care That tents thy early morning. So thou, sweet Rosebud, young and gay, Shalt beauteous blaze upon the day, And bless the Parent's evening ray That watch'd thy early morning.

Růžové poupě (Sládek 31-32) Když po mezi jsem ráno šel, já poupátko jsem uviděl, kde u žita se šípek skvěl jak démanty v to ráno. Než dvakrát přešel jitra svit, list každý v nach byl porozvit a zrosenou se růži rdít jsem uviděl v to ráno. Na nejskrytější větvici jsem v hnízdě viděl pěnici, na prsou rosu zářící v to svěží, časné ráno. Mlaď její už co nevidět do volných luhů dá se v let a v třpytném listí probouzet vždy bude první ráno. Tak, Jenny, ptáčku rozmilý, ty odměníš se za chvíli svou písní těm, kdož pěstili tě v tvoje první ráno. Tak ty, jež teď jsi poupětem, též růží budeš rozkvětem a oblažíš kdys večer těm, kdož chránili tě ráno

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The Lazy Mist The lazy mist hangs from the brow of the hill, Concealing the course of the dark-winding rill; How languid the scenes, late so sprightly, appear, As Autumn to Winter resigns the pale year. The forests are leafless, the meadows are brown, And all the gay foppery of summer is flown: Apart let me wander, apart let me muse, How quick Time is flying, how keen Fate pursues. How long I have liv'd - but how much liv'd in vain; How little of life's scanty span may remain: What aspects, old Time, in his progress, has worn; What ties, cruel Fate, in my bosom has torn. How foolish, or worse, till our summit is gain'd! And downward, how weaken'd, how darken'd, how pain'd! Life is not worth having with all it can give, For something beyond it poor man sure must live. Mlha (Sládek 30) Na hory závoj mlhový leh', zakrývá potoka klikatý břeh, — smutno je kolem, kde krásno tak dřív, zima juž dýchá z holin a niv. Traviny hnědé, bez listu les, ten tam je léta veselý ples, sám chci teď bloudit přes údol a sráz, a myslit, jak osud letí a čas. Jak jsem tak dlouho a nadarmo žil, jak málo mi zbývá života chvil, jak bylo druhdy, jak bude dál co svazků osud již spřetrhal. — Jak bláznů skokem jsme na vrchol šli, a dolů ten krok náš je znaven a mdlý! Ba, zač by ten život celý stál nám, v cos kdyby člověk nedoufal — tam!

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Address to the Woodlark O stay, sweet warbling woodlark stay, Nor quit for me the trembling spray, A hapless lover courts thy lay, Thy soothing, fond complaining. Again, again that tender part, That I may catch thy melting art; For surely that wad touch her heart Wha kills me wi' disdaining. Say, was thy little mate unkind, And heard thee as the careless wind? Oh, nocht but love and sorrow join'd, Sic notes o' woe could wauken! Thou tells o' never-ending care; O'speechless grief, and dark despair: For pity's sake, sweet bird, nae mair! Or my poor heart is broken!

Slavíku (Sládek 61) Pěj dál, ty sladké ptáče, pěj, se sněti pro mne neslétej, v nešťastné srdce těchu lej svým tichobolným lkaním. Tu tklivou notu dál, jen dál! Bych též ten snivý nápěv znal, on jistě té by srdce jal, jež vraždí pohrdáním. Rci, nevlídnou's-li družku měl, jak vítr lhostejnou, když's pěl? Ó jistě, láska jen a žel v tak bolný zpěv se shlukne. O věčné strasti vyprávíš, co němý bol, co šerá tíž. Ó, sladké ptáče, ustaň již, sic žalem srdce pukne!