When men display to congregations wide 150 But haply, in some cottage far apart, May hear, well pleas'd, the language of the soul; And in his Book of Life the inmates poor enroll.1 Then homeward all take off their sev'ral way; 155 The parent pair their secret homage pay, And proffer up to Heav'n the warm request, That He who stills the raven's clam'rous nest, Would, in the way His wisdom sees the best, 160 From scenes like these old Scotia's grandeur springs,2 "An honest man's the noblest work of God:"4 165 1 The devotion of the Cotter's family brings to mind Wordsworth's description, in The Excursion, of the Wanderer's religious home" among the hills of Athol," Scotland. His parents and “their numerous offspring composed A virtuous household, though exceeding poor! Pure livers were they all, austere and grave, And fearing God; the very children taught And an habitual piety, maintained With strictness scarcely known on English ground.'" Britannia sees her solid grandeur rise." THOMSON'S Seasons. 3 "Princes and lords may flourish, or may fade; 4 From Pope's Essay on Man, Book IV. line 247. And certes,1 in fair virtue's heavenly road, What is a lordling's pomp? a cumbrous load, O Scotia! my dear, my native soil! For whom my warmest wish to Heaven is sent! Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil 170 Be blest with health, and peace, and sweet content! 175 From luxury's contagion,3 weak and vile; Then, howe'er crowns and coronets be rent, A virtuous populace may rise the while, And stand a wall of fire around their much-loved isle. 180 O Thou! who pour'd the patriotic tide. Or nobly die-the second glorious part, In bright succession raise, her ornament and guard! 5 1 " Certes," certainly; surely. An Old English form, like meed" in the first stanza. obsolete words. ween 185 " and Burns was imitating Spenser, who uses many Do cottages and palaces run races? 2 Is not this a faulty figure? 3 "O luxury! thou curst by Heaven's decree” (Deserted Village, line 385). 4 "The first book I met with in my early years, which I perused with pleasure, was The Life of Hannibal; the next was The History of Sir William Wallace. For several of my earlier years I had few other authors" (BURNS). 5 Read the last twenty lines of Goldsmith's Deserted Village; also the passage from Thomson's Summer, in The Seasons, beginning: "O Thou by whose almighty nod the scale Of empire rises, or alternate falls," etc. QUERIES AND SUGGESTIONS. Was the choice of the Spenserian stanza for this poem based on good reasons? For what species of poem is this form best suited? Why? Make a list of noted pieces written in Spenserian stanzas. What is the so-called "Burns stanza"? Are there samples of it in this book? Pick out the archaic words in the poem. Explain why Burns used them. Why are only ten of the stanzas in Scottish dialect, and the rest in almost pure English? Observe how much Burns was indebted, both for ideas and for modes of expression used in this poem, to Gray, Goldsmith, Pope, Fergusson, and Thomson. Does this imply lack of origi nality? Was Burns, as a rule, a "bookish" poet? Which stanzas are mainly descriptive? which narrative? which moralizing? which patriotic? What importance does the poet give to formal acts of devotion? Does it Does the poem teach that poverty is a blessing? teach that riches and rank are unfavorable to high virtue? Burns and Goldsmith think alike regarding these things? Were their circumstances similar? Imagine the hardships and privations of the Cotter's family in the bleak Scottish climate in November. Compare the scenes described in stanzas 2, 3, 4, 5, 11, with corresponding scenes in modern farm life in the United States. Comment on the several characters: the Cotter, his wife, Jenny, and the "blate" youth, sae bashfu' an' sae grave." What "patriots" has Scotland produced? What "patriot bards" besides Burns? Are patriots and poets indeed the "ornament and guard" of nations ? Is "The Cotter's Saturday Night" a very quotable piece? Cull out a few striking passages or lines. "Hard must that man's heart have been, and opaque his intellect, who, after reading 'The Cotter's Saturday Night,' could have looked with disdainful eyes upon any cottage. Scotland was the first object of the revelation, but after Scotland, mankind" (Mrs. OLIPHANT). TAM O'SHANTER. A TALE.1 "Of Brownyis and of Bogilis full is this Buke."-GAWIN Douglas. WHEN chapman billies 2 leave the street,3 And drouthy neebors, neebors meet, 4 As market days are wearing late, An' folk begin to tak the gate; An' getting fou and unco happy, We think na on the lang Scots miles,5 5 1 "The story is founded on a traditional tale. The leading circumstances of a man riding home very late from Ayr, in a stormy night, his seeing a light in Alloway Kirk, his having the curiosity to look in, his seeing a dance of witches, with the devil playing on the bagpipe to them, the scanty covering of one of the witches, which made him so far forget himself as to cry, ' Weel loupen, short sark!' with the melancholy catastrophe of the piece,—it is all a true story, that can be well attested by many respectable old people in that neighborhood" (Gilbert Burns, the poet's brother). The poem was written in 1790, at Ellisland, and was first published in Captain Grose's Antiquities of Scotland. Shanter is a farm in Ayrshire, and its tenant, Douglas Graham, may have been the prototype of Tam" (J. L. ROBERTSON). 2 "Here chapman billies tak their stand" (FERGUSSON). 3 Road. 4 Days fixed by law for holding market in a town. 5 The old Scottish mile was 1,976 yards, equal to 1.123 English miles. |