Yet Dr. Moore, in 1789, writes to Burns, "If I were
to offer an opinion, it would be that in your future productions you
should abandon the Scotch stanza and dialect, and adopt the measure
and language of modern English poetry"!
As the 128th birth-anniversary of the poet draws on, (January, 1887,)
with its increasing club-suppers, vehement celebrations, letters,
speeches, and so on--(mostly, as William O'Connor says, from people
who would not have noticed R. B. at all during his actual life, nor
kept his company, or read his verses, on any account)--it may be
opportune to print some leisurely-jotted notes I find in my budget.
I take my observation of the Scottish bard by considering him as an
individual amid the crowded clusters, galaxies, of the old world--and
fairly inquiring and suggesting what out of these myriads he too may
be to the Western Republic. In the first place no poet on record so
fully bequeaths his own personal magnetism,[39] nor illustrates more
pointedly how one's verses, by time and reading, can so curiously fuse
with the versifier's own life and death, and give final light and
shade to all.
I would say a large part of the fascination of Burns's homely, simple
dialect-melodies is due, for all current and future readers, to the
poet's personal "errors," the general bleakness of his lot, his
ingrain'd pensiveness, his brief dash into dazzling, tantalizing,
evanescent sunshine--finally culminating in those last years of his
life, his being taboo'd and in debt, sick and sore, yaw'd as by
contending gales, deeply dissatisfied with everything, most of all
with himself--high-spirited too--(no man ever really higher-spirited
than Robert Burns.
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