physical weariness save what comes from the feeling for home and wife
and children. Then follow the gathering of the older sons and
daughter, the telling of the experiences of the week, and the advice
of the father. The daughter's suitor arrives, and the girl's
consciousness as well as the lover's shyness are delicately rendered.
Two stanzas in English moralize the situation, and for our present
purpose may be ignored. The supper of porridge and milk and a bit of
cheese is followed by a reverent account of family prayers, the father
leading, the family joining in the singing of the psalm. And as they
part for the night, the poet is carried away into an elevated
apostrophe to the country whose foundations rest upon such a
peasantry, and closes with a patriotic prayer for its preservation.

The truth of the picture is indubitable. The poet could, of course,
have chosen another phase of the same life. The cotter could have come
home rheumatic and found the children squalling and the wife cross.
The daughter might have been seduced, and the sons absent in the
ale-house. But what he does describe is just as typical, and it is
beautiful, though the manners and religion are Scottish.

Another social occasion is the subject of _Halloween_. The poem, with
Burns's notes, is a mine of folk-lore, but we are concerned with it as
literature. Here the tone is humorous instead of reverent, the
characters are mixed, the selection is more widely representative.
With complete frankness, the poet exhibits human nature under the
influence of the mating instinct, directed by harmless, age-old
superstitions. The superstitions are not attacked, but gently
ridiculed. The fundamental veracity of the whole is seen when we
realize that, in spite of the strong local color, it is
psychologically true for similar festivities among the peasantry of
all countries.

HALLOWEEN[4]

Upon that night, when fairies light
On Cassilis Downans[5] dance,
Or owre the lays, in splendid blaze, [over, pastures]
On sprightly coursers prance;
Or for Colean the rout is ta'en, [road]
Beneath the moon's pale beams;
There, up the Cove,[6] to stray an' rove
Amang the rocks and streams
To sport that night;

Amang the bonnie winding banks
Where Doon rins wimplin' clear, [winding]
Where Bruce[7] ance rule