Walk around Central Park, and you’ll come across a statue of Robert Burns, Scotland’s national poet. There are more statues of Robert Burns in the United States than of any American poet. Burns was born this day, 265 years ago, the eldest of seven children. Tonight (and thereabouts) he’ll be celebrated all over the world in a Scottish tradition known as a “Burns night” or “Burns supper.” People dressed in tartan will sing his songs and recite his poems; they’ll eat haggis, drink Scotch, and toast to Robert Burns.
Burns was born in Alloway, Ayrshire, on the west coast of Scotland to a farmer and his wife. His poor background makes the development of his literary genius unlikely. But despite these economic disadvantages, his parents invested in his education, and he received some formal schooling. Whatever this consisted of — a bit of Latin, French, Scottish oral tradition, and the English literary classics — it was sufficient.
He began writing poems at the age of 15. By the age of 27, in 1786, he had published his first collection, Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect, published two years later in the relatively new country, the United States. Soon after, he became the 18th-century equivalent of a rock star.
By the time of his death at 37, Burns had fathered 12 children by four different mothers. Nine were with his wife, Jean Armour, though the first four were born before they were married. If his personal life was controversial, so too were his political views.
Burns saw in the American revolutionaries kindred spirits. He wrote his Ode for General Washington on His Birthday (1794), though it was not published during his lifetime. In 1793, he wrote “Scots Wha Hae,” inspired by both the French and American revolutions; initially, he did not publish it under his name.
As I noted in 2019: “The naturalist John Muir, who later founded the Sierra Club, carried a book of Burns poems and counted it among his most treasured possessions. Ralph Waldo Emerson famously said: ‘He [Burns] has made that Lowland Scotch a Doric dialect of fame. It is the only example in history of a language made classic by the genius of a single man.’” The title of John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men was inspired by a Burns classic.
According to Abraham Lincoln’s contemporary, Milton Hay, the 16th president could “very nearly quote all of Burns’ poems from memory.” Attending a Burns night at the Washington Burns Club, Lincoln said: “Thinking of what he has said I cannot say anything which seems worth saying.”
Here is Robert Burns, then, in his own words:
The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men
Gang aft a-gley.-To a Mouse (1785)
O wad some Power the giftie gie us
To see ourselves as ithers see us!
It wad frae mony a blunder free us,
An’ foolish notion:–To a Louse (1786)
Had we never lov’d sae kindly,
Had we never lov’d sae blindly,
Never met — or never parted —
we had ne’er been broken-hearted.–Ae Fond Kiss (1791)
My heart’s in the Highlands, my heart is not here;
My heart’s in the Highlands a-chasing the deer;
A-chasing the wild-deer, and following the roe,
My heart’s in the Highlands wherever I go.–My Heart’s in the Highlands (1789)
Lay the proud usurpers low!
Tyrants fall in every foe!
Liberty’s in every blow!
Let us do or die!–Scots Wha Hae (1793)
But deep this truth impress’d my mind:
Thro’ all His works abroad,
The heart benevolent and kind
The most resembles God.–A Winter Night (1786)