While whistling along behind the plough or swinging the scythe, he was humming the songs of his country, or changing the forms of the ballads which he wrote at night in his cheerless room. It was while ploughing in the field that he composed "That I for puir auld Scotland's sake Some useful plan or book could make 5 Burns had a tender heart and ready sympathy. One day his plough turned up a field mouse in her nest. 10 The frightened little creature started to run, and one of the boys was about to kill her when Burns interfered. The thought that he had broken up this home where Mousie thought herself safe from the cold of winter filled him with regret, and he wrote his celebrated 15 poem, "To a Mouse," on this occasion. Another poem, "To a Mountain Daisy," was composed while he was ploughing a field where he had uprooted a daisy which was just springing up through the soil. His first poem of note, "Behind Yon Hills where 20 Lugar Flows," was written when Burns was twentytwo years old. During that year he went to Irvine to learn the flax dresser's trade. "It was," he writes, "an unlucky affair. As we were giving a welcome to the New Year, the shop took fire and burned to 25 ashes, and I was left, like a true poet, without a sixpence." His father's failing health and misfortunes made it necessary for him to return to the farm. Burns began to be known in the neighborhood as a writer of verses, but some of his poems were received with disapproval, and other circumstances increased the feeling against him, so that he decided 5 to leave Scotland and sail for Jamaica. To raise the needful funds, he had six hundred copies of a volume of his poems printed at Kilmarnock. The little book sold rapidly, and the poet had twenty guineas left after paying all expenses. Burns was 10 now ready to leave Scotland, but a letter from a friend changed the current of his life and kept him in his native land. The poet was received with the highest honor at Edinburgh, where he was invited into the society of the 15 men of letters, rank, and fashion. Surely his dream had come true. He had reached the heart of "Bonnie Scotland"! Burns has taken the humblest pictures of Scottish life and breathed a deeper meaning into them than has ever been dreamed of by poet or 20 artist. He has compared himself to an Æolian harp strung to every wind of Heaven, and there seems to be nothing from the "wee, modest, crimson-tipped flower" to Scotland, his dear native land, that he has not clothed in verse. A second edition of his 25 poems was published during the following year, and the proceeds of their sale brought the author five hundred pounds. Soon afterwards Burns married Jean Armour, to whom he had long been attached, and settled on a farm at Ellisland, not far from Dumfries. When he took possession of the farm Burns asked little Betty, the servant, to take the family Bible and a bowl of salt, and, placing the one on the other, to walk into the house. This was one of the old customs, and the poet delighted in such observances. He and his 5 wife followed Betty and began life on this farm. While here he was appointed Excise officer for the district, and spent much of his time riding about the At hills and vales of Nithsdale searching for smugglers, and murmuring his wayward fancies as he rode along. 10 He often had a half dozen pieces in his mind, and thought of one or the other as suited his mood. this time Burns wrote about a hundred Scottish songs, for which he received a shawl for his wife, a picture representing "The Cotter's Saturday Night," and about 15 five pounds. In a short time he was obliged to leave the pleasant farm and remove to a small house at Dumfries, where he hoped to support his family on his small increase of salary as Excise man of that district; but certain political views made him unpopular. He became intem5 perate, and his health failed. He decided to try sea bathing and at first imagined that the sea had benefited him, but on his return home on the 18th of July, 1796, he became very ill and died within a few days. The inhabitants of Dumfries started a subscription 10 for the support of the widow and children of their beloved poet, which was increased by contributions from all over Scotland, and from England also. In the old churchyard at Dumfries is the mausoleum built over the poet's tomb, and a monument was 15 erected to his memory beside the banks of "Bonnie Doon"; but he still lives in the hearts and memories of the Scottish people, who sing his songs and reverence the very walks where he loved to muse. PLEASURES. ROBERT BURNS. BUT pleasures are like poppies spread, That flit ere you can point their place; Or like the rainbow's lovely form From "Tam O'Shanter." FLOW GENTLY, SWEET AFTON. ROBERT BURNS. FLOW gently, sweet Afton, among thy green braes, Thou stock-dove whose echo resounds thro' the glen, How lofty, sweet Afton, thy neighboring hills, My flocks and my Mary's sweet cot in my eye. How pleasant thy banks and green valleys below, |