mposed while galloping over the moor in a storm--which
have made the name of Burns known wherever the English language is spoken,
and honored wherever Scotchmen gather together. He died miserably in 1796,
when only thirty-seven years old. His last letter was an appeal to a friend
for money to stave off the bailiff, and one of his last poems a tribute to
Jessie Lewars, a kind lassie who helped to care for him in his illness.
This last exquisite lyric, "O wert thou in the cauld blast," set to
Mendelssohn's music, is one of our best known songs, though its history is
seldom suspected by those who sing it.

THE POETRY OF BURNS. The publication of the Kilmarnock Burns, with the
title _Poems Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect_ (1786), marks an epoch in the
history of English Literature, like the publication of Spenser's
_Shepherd's Calendar_. After a century of cold and formal poetry, relieved
only by the romanticism of Gray and Cowper, these fresh inspired songs went
straight to the heart, like the music of returning birds in springtime. It
was a little volume, but a great book; and we think of Marlowe's line,
"Infinite riches in a little room," in connection with it. Such poems as
"The Cotter's Saturday Night," "To a Mouse," "To Mountain Daisy," "Man was
Made To Mourn," "The Twa Dogs," "Address to the Deil," and "Halloween,"
suggest that the whole spirit of the romantic revival is embodied in this
obscure plowman. Love, humor, pathos, the response to nature,--all the
poetic qualities that touch the human heart are here; and the heart was
touched as it had not been since the days of Elizabeth. If the reader will
note again the six characteristics of the romantic movement, and then read
six poems of Burns, he will see at once how perfectly this one man
expresses the new idea. Or take a single suggestion,--

Ae fond kiss, and then we sever!
Ae farewell, and then forever!
Deep in heart-wrung tears I'll pledge thee,
Warring sighs and groans I'll wage thee.
Who shall say that Fortune grieves him
While the star of hope she leaves him?
Me, nae cheerfu' twinkle lights me;
Dark despair around benights me.
I'll ne'er blame my partial fancy,
Naething could resist my Nancy;
But to see her was to love her;
Love but her, and love forever.
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.

The "es