So may no ruffian feeling in thy breast Or pity's notes, in luxury of tears, As modest want the tale of woe reveals; While conscious virtue all the strain endears, And heaven-born piety her sanction seals. ["It were to be wished," says Currie, "that instead of 'ruffian feeling' in the second verse, that the Bard had used a less rugged epithet―e.g. ruder." Burns seldom failed to clothe his thoughts in suitable language : the sentiment put on at once its livery of words, and he was loth to make alterations. The remark of Currie strikes, not at this expression alone, but at the general language of the Poet's verse. We must take him as we find him; had he softened down his masculine energy, he would have robbed his poems of a great charm: the rose would be less lovely were its thorns removed, and how would the thistle look without its prickles? The cry of the eagle can never be tamed down into the song of the lark, nor the wild note of the blackbird sobered into that of the wren.-ED.] No. LIII. G. THOMSON TO BURNS. MY DEAR SIR: Edinburgh, 10th August, 1794. I owe you an apology for having so long delayed to acknowledge the favour of your last. I fear it will be as you say, I shall have no more songs from Pleyel till France and we are friends; but, nevertheless, I am very desirous to be prepared with the poetry, and as the season approaches in which your muse of Coila visits you, I trust I shall, as formerly, be frequently gratified with the result of your amorous and tender interviews! [Burns in the preceding letter, and Thomson in this, allude to the commencement of that terrible war which shook the thrones of Europe, and strewed hill and vale with slaughtered bodies. Democratic ferocity on one side, and kingly tyranny on the other, turned the Continent into a battle-field: the notes of Pleyel were unheard amid the trumpet-sound and the din of artillery: and some of the songs of Burns, expressing a manly—a true Scottish-love for freedom-were for a time unacceptable to the people of Britain.-ED.] No. LIV. BURNS TO G. THOMSON. 30th August, 1794. THE last evening, as I was straying out, and thinking of "O'er the hills and far away," I spun the following stanza for it; but whether my spinning will deserve to be laid up in store, like the precious thread of the silk-worm, or brushed to the devil like the vile manufacture of the spider, I leave, my dear Sir, to your usual candid criticism. I was pleased with several lines in it, at first; but I own that now it appears rather a flimsy business. This is just a hasty sketch, until I see whether it be worth a critique. We have many sailor songs; but, as far as I at present recollect, they are mostly the effusions of the jovial sailor, not the wailings of his love-lorn mistress. I must here make one sweet exception-" Sweet Annie frae the Sea-beach came." Now for the song: ON THE SEAS AND FAR AWAY. Tune-" O'er the hills," &c. I. How can my poor heart be glad, On the seas and far away, On stormy seas and far away; II. When in summer's noon I faint, III. At the starless midnight hour, When winter rules with boundless power; And thunders rend the howling air, Listening to the doubling roar, For his weal that's far away. IV. Peace, thy olive wand extend, And bid wild war his ravage end, And as a brother kindly greet: Then may heaven with prosp'rous gales To my arms their charge convey— On the seas and far away, On stormy seas and far away; Nightly dreams, and thoughts by day, I give you leave to abuse this song, but do it in the spirit of Christian meekness. |