Burns Love Life

 

Margaret Chambers

Burns love life is highly complex and complicated!  He wrote some of the most famous love songs ever written. He loved often. His first famous poem, written when Burns was sixteen was Westlin Winds for Peggy. 

As a teenager he fell in love often, after reading a book of French love letters given to him by mistake by his tutor John Murdoch! Burns’s first child, Elizabeth Burns was born to his mother’s servant Elizabeth Paton. 

There was the Mauchline Belles! Many years later when he was twenty two, Burns moved to Mossgiel farm near Mauchline in 1782, where he met his bonny Jean. She was a great singer and knew all the auld Scots ballads like his mother. 

At this time he also met his Highland Mary: after Jean suddenly left for Paisley. He pledged his love for her over a bible and later wrote the poems Highland Mary and To Mary in Heaven to her. Also – “Will ye go to the Indies, my Mary, And leave auld Scotia’s shore?” However Mary suddenly died in Greenock from Typhus, she had contracted from her uncle. Burns was devastated.  Machine was a crossroads town, with many travellers and walks fo life. 

Burns also greatly enjoyed educated, cultured women he met on his travels, who he felt a kinship with. First he met Margaret Chambers in Edina, a farmers daughter who was his equal in education and conversation. 

January 1787, Burns wrote to her, Dear Dr. Countrywoman. I know you will laugh at it, when I tell you that your playing and you together have played the deuce somehow, about my heart. I could sit down and cry like a child……’Personal attractions, Madam, you have much above par, Wit and understanding & worth, you possess in the first class. ‘   

 

Burns spent two more winters in Edina in 1787 and 88, and late in 1788 he met the elegant culture Agnes McLahose, his Nancy who was also well educated and a poet too.  He walked under Clarinda/ Nancy’s window. ‘tis the star that guards. My queen of poetesses empress of the poets soul. I gave her two wineglasses with the toast. ‘Long may we love, and long may we be happy.’ 

Clarinda needed the support of her uncle for her annuity. They wrote over 300 letters correspondence to each other from 1788 to 1791 – when he wrote his great song of parting for her Ae Fond Kiss. Clarinda was to leave and told Burns that he must go back to Jean, that there was not likely any future. Burns heart was broken. 

She left for the West indies.

After his Scotia travels (1786-1788) and his time in Edina having his poems published, Burns returned to Ayrshire and married Jean Armour in April 1788, when they moved to the Ellisland farm. They had three surviving sons. He wrote the poem I Love my Jean for her.  Also in 1791, Elizabeth Burns was born to Anna Park, a barmaid at the Globe Inn in 1791. Jean took her in and looked after her. 

Because of his education Burns straddled all walks of life, from the poor he met in Mauchline to the great and good of the Edina’s literati, the academics and the enlightenment writers.  

*In 1791 he was inspired to write one of the greatest love songs ever written, Red Red Rose.

O my Luve is like a red, red rose

That’s newly sprung in June;

O my Luve is like the melody

That’s sweetly played in tune.

 

So fair art thou, my bonnie lass,

So deep in luve am I;

And I will luve thee still, my dear,

Till a’ the seas gang dry.

 

Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,

And the rocks melt wi’ the sun;

I will love thee still, my dear,

While the sands o’ life shall run.

 

And fare thee weel, my only luve!

And fare thee weel awhile!

And I will come again, my luve,

Though it were ten thousand mile.

 His stay in the Edina resulted in lifelong friendships - with Lord Glencairn and Francis Dunlop (1730-1815) 

who became a mentor and sponsor and with whom he corresponded. 

*      *      *      *      

Farwell to Clarinda, the mistress of my soul,

The measured time is run

The wretch beneath the dreary pole

So marks his latest sun.

*      *      *      *      *

 

My Peggy’s face, my Peggy’s form,

The frost of hermitage might warm,

My Peggy’s worth, My Peggy’s mind,

Might charm the first of human kind,

I love my Peggy’s angel air,

Her face so truly heavenly fair,

Her nature grace so void of air,

And I do love my Peggy’s heart.   RB

 (Published 1802)

 

A Letter from Mrs Dunlop - She feared I might loose being this ‘rustic bard’ in Edina. She wrote such high praise, and told me, I was the best bard ever to have adorned my country. 

I wrote to her, ‘I have long studied myself and I think I know pretty exactly what ground I occupy, both as a man and a poet….Poets are such outré beings, so much the children of wayward Fancy and capricious Whim, that I believe the word generally allows them a larger latitude in the rules of Propriety, than the sober sons of Judgement and Prudence. ‘ 

 

I Love My Jean

Of a' the airts the wind can blaw,

I dearly like the West;

For there the bony Lassie lives,

The Lassie I lo'e best:

There's wild-woods grow,

and rivers row,

And mony a hill between;

But day and night my fancy's flight

Is ever wi' my Jean.

 

I see her in the dewy flowers,

I see her sweet and fair;

I hear her in the tunefu' birds,

I hear her charm the air:

There's not a bony flower that springs

By fountain, shaw, or green;

There's not a bony bird that sings

But minds me o' my Jean.

RB

 

 

Robert Burns Art influences

 

Robert Burns and other poets wrote with Scots Voices. In the 1700s many worked to write down and collect the old Scots songs.  

At a time when mainly Tory unionist voices were being heard - no other writer has done more to keep Scots voices and language alive than Burns. 

I was taken aback at the new Scottish Art galleries Edinburgh on my visit in October 2023, that there was only one mention of Robert Burns – with regard to his “Hunt” poem in an Edinburgh tearoom painting. I felt Burns legacy was a deliberate forgetting. Did his writing influence Scottish art? The main focus in the galleries was on the works of Walter Scott. 

 

Burns was influenced himself when he met many of the major enlightenment figures in Edinburgh in 1786, particularly James Hutton - whose theory was of the whole earth as a living organism. Burns explored the symbolism and spiritualism connections between the natural world, the creative fires and the established church teachings from his father – where dance was frowned upon.  

 

Burns thought of how he might fuse all these new ideas together in his poetry. Later in 1794, he wrote My luv is like a Red Red Rose - ‘ I will love you still my dear till all the seas gang try and the rocks melt with the sun.”  Burns collected and rewrote many of the auld Scots ballads.

 

Burns most famous narrative poem Tam O’ Shanter, was about warlocks, witches, faeries, demons – of the struggles between Old Spunkie’s creative fires and the church teaching - Tam O Shanter. He wrote this poem after a dream, on his walk along the River Nith at Ellisland farm. The Scottish painter Lachlan Goudie and his father were inspired to illustrate a book of the scary ghosts and witches in Tam O’Shanter. 

It was wonderful to see the new Scottish galleries in 2023. 

I realise Scott lived in Edinburgh but Burns was there for quite a few months in 1786 ad 1787. And was greatly influenced by his time there. He visited the men’s social clubs – Fencible Chronicles down Anchor Close. He visited William Creech’s bookshop and publishing house at the Tollbooth near St Giles cathedral and the Mercat Cross, where each day the great and the good met. 

 

He met the great love of his life here, late 1787, Agnes McLahose (or his Clarinda) – who he wrote many letters to, and his great parting song Ae Fond Kiss.

 

**Scott may have been read widely worldwide in the 1800s, but to my mind (and most Scots) Burns is our national hero and bard. He was painted by his good friend Alexander Nasmyth on their walks to Rosslyn. I realise Scott did write memorable books and poems – but his books seems one-sided and narrow of a mythical Scotland that is lost and gone forever. Of a Tory unionist Scotland, that is only part of Scotland.

 

As I walked around the Scottish art galleries – I thought ‘which’ Scotland are we emboldening and remembering here? After the first section covering the romantic period, I entered the brighter more modern period, with the windows open to the east Princes street gardens views and which display some of Scotland’s great impressionist artists – The Glasgow Boys, James Guthrie, John Lavery, William Macgregor: The Scottish Colourists, John Peploe, John Fergusson, Francis Cadell, Leslie Hunter. A memorable display.  

 

Burns was influenced by the Ossian poems of James MacPherson, as the first Scots bard – and also by the other great Scots poets. Burns was writing and collecting Scots poems before Scott, in fact he met a young sixteen year old Walter Scott at an Edinburgh literary party, after which Scott wore about Burns. 

*     *     *     *

 

 

Burns words, images and narratives are all pervasive, whether its his emotive love poems, his love of nature, his voice for all the people with his Socts a Hae and Mans a Man. His poetry has a big impact worldwide on authors in America and on Russian Burns clubs. Steinbeck’s 'Of Mice and Men' and J.D Salinger’s ‘Catcher in the Rye’.

Burns is the most significant Scotch image, heritage, word and song. We should be very proud of his legacies!

Revival Scots Language

 

I attended a talk last week by the Scots poet Len Pennie at Dreamworks Bookshop Milngavie

Pennie’s poems have more lilting lyrical musicality than her English poetry. Her poems pack immediate emotional directness and punch. She says it was all the grandmothers who kept the Scots voices and language alive. 

 

Welsh Labour are proud of Welsh Gaelic and the Welsh flag. We cannot say the same of Scottish labour, would they stand in front of the saltire and speak in Scots Gaelic or Scots? There’s been a long story of religious divisions in Scotland – the divide and rule tactic of the empire elites.

 

She suffered dreadful trolling online abuse. For many years the Scots language has been treated as a ‘pretendy language’ and oddly often by hostile Scots, it’s a centuries old saga. Yet Scots have been historically influenced by their connections and trade to Flanders and Ireland. 

II  Back when James VI held a clan gathering on Iona, he insisted that the clans had their eldest son educated in England, and taught to speak ‘correct English’. This practice continues to this day, with the private school accents. All the assimilation, repression of cultural difference. In the 20^thcentury English managers and middle class professionals came to Scotland – and Scots speaking workers were treated as second class citizens in their own country. 

 

The opposite was true back after union 1700s though – the Scots were the workers of the British empire, when after Reformation many Scots were highly educated and there were more ancient universities in Scotland – 

 

So what changed?

During the 1700s several poets wrote to keep the scots language alive  - Allan Ramsey, Robert Fergusson and notably Robert Burns. Burns wrote in English, the language of his education in books. But it was when he read the Scots poems of Fergusson he was inspired to write in Scots, the language closest to his heart. His mother knew and sang all the old Scots ballads. Burns collected, added to and edited the auld Scots songs from his many Scotia travels. 

 

English is of course the global language after the spread of the British empire. But crucially cultural diversity matters so much – both back in Burns day and today. We can have global trade and connectedness AND also have our own voices. We can have both. Why must it be either or?

 

For decades Scots children were rapped over the knuckles if they spoke with a Scots accent or belted if they used Scots words or dialects. Broadcaster Lorraine Kelly was initially told she must tone down her Scots accent if she wanted to be successful - and she thought why should I? 

 

In the 1950s most radio and tv presenters spoke with a clipped Oxford English. Today we have many accents – yet worryingly Scots students attending Edinburgh university continue to be mocked for speaking with a Scots accent – and told to ‘speak more correctly’ by English private school students. When I travelled across Edinburgh on the top of the bus I heard English accents of students in brightly coloured blazers and thought, where are they from? Around 25% of Edinburgh students attend private schools. This creates an unhealthy two-tier society which holds many children back.  

 

At Celtic Connections there are many hauntingly beautiful Gaelic singers 

When Scots writer Billy Kay gave a speech in Scot in the Scottish parliament, he was ridiculed by many Scots. The usual Scots versus Scots. In Switzerland they can speak both local and high German languages – the two languages sit by side by side and not in opposition to each other.

 

Why must Scots chose a side? Religious wars are now centuries old – while the British Constitution of 1688 continues to dominate. Why cant we have English and Scots and Scots Gaelic alongside each other?

 

The Scots language is not merely a side issue – its crucial to our Scots identity and unique voice. Diversity matters. 

 

**The Scots language has been recognised on Spotify – Iona Fyfe

 

Scots is now taught in Scottish schools. 

Lindsey Hilsum Poetry in Times of War EIBF 2025

It’s the Poetry we’ll remember

Channel four foreign news correspondent gave a talk at Edinburgh international book festival 2025, on her book I Brought the War with me, about her poetry in times of war. She always carries a book of poetry with her. After her horrific experiences of fighting in Rwanda, she felt she needed philosophical more than psychological help.

 

She says that people remember the great poets of the world wars, and not the journalists reports. 

When in Ukraine in 2022, at a town called Izium, she stood beside an apartment block split apart by a missile. Fifty four people had been killed in the Russian attack six months before. 

 

"Purple and yellow wild flowers were growing in the rubble that filled the chasm between the two parts of the block. It is not the houses. It is the space between the houses,” I thought. “It is not the streets that exist. It is the streets that no longer exist.” 

She then thought of James Fenton 1981 poem A German Requiem, about selective memory in the second world war. 

 It is not your memories which haunt you.
It is not what you have written down.
It is what you have forgotten, what you must forget.
What you must go on forgetting all your life.

“The idea that the spaces between the houses symbolised gaps in memory, and that forgetting might be essential if people were to live together in peace, 

Poetry helps us see parallels with the past, and puts up a mirror to our fears.

 

Hilsum spoke of her often traumatic experiences covering many foreign wars over her 40 years of experience…” Many journalists are resilient, and – at least for now – I would count myself as fortunate in this regard. Witnessing the suffering of others, surviving danger and experiencing grief are all profound experiences, to which nightmares, anger, tears and bouts of despondency are all normal, human responses. They are not necessarily signs of a clinical condition.”

She explained that Poets don’t have the answers. But they may help us understand our own actions and reactions and find a way through the darkness.  

She got into reporting via aid work in Central America in the 70s. ‘I didn’t really know that war was brewing across the region – my concern was social justice, and, at 20 years old, I just wanted to have an adventure and change the world. (I succeeded in the former but not – needless to say – in the latter.) In 1982, I moved to Kenya to work for the UN International Children’s Emergency Fund, Unicef.

She realised her main skill was to pivot to journalism. “Reality overcame the illusions I harboured. Nearly every country neighbouring Kenya – Uganda, Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia – was going through civil war… I found that while reporting on people in war zones was at times upsetting and occasionally terrifying, it was also rewarding and exciting. I felt that I was living through history as it happened. Later, I was lucky enough to get a job with Channel 4 News, based in London, and while I have never been exclusively a war correspondent, I have spent a lot of my career reporting conflict”

She spoke of the great war poets, and said that many war poems are written by women. “I am drawn to what Wilfred Owen described as: “The pity of war, the pity war distilled.” 

Hilsum, was handed a rose in Velyka Novosilka, eastern Ukraine, by Oleksiy, who was cycling across town to see his friend, at the start of the Ukrainian counter-offensive in June 2023.” 

“ journalism is ephemeral. We rarely read the stories written by reporters who covered the first and second world wars. We do, of course, read the poetry. They focus on what is critical now – this village taken, that truce broken, a new atrocity by occupying forces. But poets through the ages have turned the horror of war into transcendent works of beauty and meaning.

The late Irish musician Frank Harte said: “Those in power write the history; those who suffer write the songs.”

 This is an extract from I Brought the War with Me by Lindsey Hilsum, which is published by Chatto & Windus on 19 September (£16.99). 

II  Extract from her memoir, she explains why her own words were not always enough    

My TV news report reflected some of this, but it did not have the allusive power of the poem.

“In my nearly four decades as a foreign correspondent, I have always carried a book of poetry with me. While the images we show have great impact, I feel that journalistic language sometimes fails to convey the intensity of the experience. Maybe Fenton’s poetry resonates with me because he was a war correspondent as well as a poet – he sees what I see but has found a more compelling way of expressing it, as if he is working in three dimensions while I am stuck in two. We journalists pride ourselves on the clarity of our prose and on making complex stories simple. That’s our job – to explain why terrible things are happening and to challenge the euphemisms used by politicians and military spokespeople. We also try to convey the thoughts and feelings of the people we meet, and a sense of what it feels like to be on the ground. Yet we may lose the deeper meaning, the universal import of what we have witnessed or the contradictory emotions that war engenders.”

She got into reporting via aid work in Central America in the 70s. "I didn’t really know that war was brewing across the region – my concern was social justice, and, at 20 years old, I just wanted to have an adventure and change the world. (I succeeded in the former but not – needless to say – in the latter.) In 1982, I moved to Kenya to work for the UN International Children’s Emergency Fund, Unicef."

”She realised her main skill was to pivot to journalism. “Reality overcame the illusions I harboured. Nearly every country neighbouring Kenya – Uganda, Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia – was going through civil war… I found that while reporting on people in war zones was at times upsetting and occasionally terrifying, it was also rewarding and exciting. I felt that I was living through history as it happened. Later, I was lucky enough to get a job with Channel 4 News, based in London, and while I have never been exclusively a war correspondent, I have spent a lot of my career reporting conflict”

War gives your life purpose and meaning… the colours are brighter and the mountains clearer

She spoke of her personal reporting of war zones – “The lives of those who have had war visited upon them, the children, conscripts and civilians, are desperate and miserable. But those who visit war – aid workers, journalists, military volunteers – share a secret. War gives your life purpose and meaning."

 Suddenly you believe you know what matters and what can be dismissed as unimportant. The colours are brighter and the mountains clearer. You live in the moment.” 

This is an extract from I Brought the War with Me by Lindsey Hilsum, which is published by Chatto & Windus on 19 September (£16.99). 

 

Poetry Shapes Us

 

While Burns loved the lassies, his legacy is much deeper and more wide-ranging poetically than his love life. Some of his songs are so familiar, perhaps we can overlook his literary significance – both of his time and of ours.  The musicality of his song writing and poems, is unmatched and many famous poets and songsmiths name Burns as a favourite writer– from Bob Dylan to Wordsworth. 

In his short life he touched hearts, wrote of the worth of man (and woman), respect for the natural world, of freedom fighters, and he was a man o independent mind. 

 

“Poetry hold s mirror to a nations heart and soul. “ Jackie Key

“Its the language of being human” 

 

 *Famous Scots Poems 20^th century 

 

Memo for Spring - Liz Lochead

Drunk man looks at a Thistle – Hugh MacDiarmid

In my Country – Jackie Kay

A Man in Assynt – Norman McCaig

 

Gaelic Song

A rare beauty, or the big sky of Lewis. 

Gaelic poems were songs, tunes and words intertwined. The connections to place.

  

Norman McCaig

“Who owns this landscape – has it anything to do with love? Even the dead are part of it. Land is a character…Landscape is my religion, I feel at home. My substitute for religion and politics.“

 

Drunk man looks at a thistle – Hugh MacDiarmid – Where extremes meet

His poem, revolutionized Scots poetry ’to be yoursell” 

“He showed us that small nations are better than large ones, and the possibility of a new Scotland.” Alan Riach. “A revolutionary vision of what society can be. To rethink the Burns cult for a multi-faceted identity. Language matters.”

 

Was Robert Burns a Reformer, a Jacobin or a Supporter of King George

 

There has been a debates over Burns political views. Its particularly difficult because Burns had to play all sides in order to earn a living and to gain subscribers for his poetry. Burns grew up the oldest of seven children with a poor tenant farmer, who was told his land would be improved, but wasn’t. In July 1786 Buns published his first book of poetry, Poems Chiefly in the Scotch dialect” and to do so required many subscribers. 

 

Burns was an active freemason which was a great way to network, gain influence and meet men from all walks of life. He also belonged to gentlemen clubs in Edinburgh. For instance during his time in the crossroads town of Mauchline (1784-1786) he met all kinds of people from all walks of life at Poozie Nansies ale house -  titled landowning men, dukes, earls, lawyers, academics, clergy, farmers, peasants, shopkeepers, artists, doctors, scholars. 

 

His first book of poems received great acclaim and sold worldwide. He was given enough support to enable him to travel to Edinburgh for a second edition and later to travel across Scotland collecting both subscribers and traditional tunes and songs. As a man of genius he might have been better supported and after two years (1786-1788) he felt compelled to join the Excise to support his young family. He married Jean Armour in April 1788 and they moved to Ellisland farm north of Dumfries. He continued to write his poetry, collect songs, travel long distances for the Excise and keep detailed records. Jean looked after the farm. 

 

The Burns museum displays many of the myths that surround Burns – from one of the first Romantic poets, to the farmers son in enlightened Edinburgh. His image was appropriated in Victorian times to promote Scotland worldwide. Often Burns significant and interesting political views and the turbulent revolutionary times he lived in are glossed over. At the times 1780s there was the American wars of independence and the French revolution.

 

But this was not how Burns viewed his poetry and songs. He wrote in Scots and English, after reading Robert Fergusson Scots poems and Allan Ramsey. He collected and wrote to save and preserve the Scots language and songs. At a time when Scots voices were being crushed after Culloden (1746), when the highland way of life was destroyed by Cumberland and wearing the kilt was banned. 

 

Burns wore a plaid shawl around his shoulders and his hair in a pony tail as a sign of rebellion. His grandfather had worked for the Earl of Marischal south of Aberdeen - the most powerful Jacobite who fled after the 1715 uprising. His father then travelled south.

 

In Dumfries Burns drank with reformers at the Globe Inn. In fact there’s a story of Burns rudely keeping his hat on during the singing of the British national anthem at the new Dumfries theatre. He wrote to Mrs Dunlop about the “idiot French King Louis, who deserved to have his head chopped off”. His reformer friends at Dumfries Globe Inn, sent weapons to France to help the new republic. Tom Paine wrote the Rights of Man’ pamphlet which helped start the American wars of independence. Burns wrote his famous poem A Mans a Man For A That 1795 – “shall equals be for all that”

Burns certainly was a man of many sides – a Lad O Pairts, He adored lively debates, had renowned conversations, and looked widely for ideas. His favourite book A Man of Feeling by Henry McKenzie. He read all the great English poets and enlightenment figures. He lived in crossroads, turbulent times – just as Mozart (1756-1791) and Bob Dylan. Any study of Burns needs to dig deep into the many images and myths portrayed of Burns.  

 

In his book “Robert Burns and Political Culture” Dr Paul Malgrati advocates that Burns was politically ambiguous - he was so to protect himself and his family, from being investigated by the Hanoverian London authorities. He was nearly investigated but managed to contact supporters to protect him. At the time reformers such as the lawyer Thomas Muir were being put on trial and then sent to Australia. Malgrati suggests that our great Scottish bard is not the right role model or image for Scotland’s independence. (Sunday National, 22 Dec 2024. Book suggests independence movement should cut ties with Robert Burns).  

 

Reformers for liberty in turbulent times! - “I was the independent-minded man whose sympathies were with my own folk – even while I had to work for the crown and government. Democracy’ was a dangerous word. Reform! My god! What a reform I would make among the sons and even the daughters of men!”  RB

My impression of Burns is he had great humanity and understanding. Burns was a man of independent mind. His many letters show a man interested in politics and also a great reader. Reading his letters, poems, songs and biographies’ its hard not to believe Burns supported reform. 

He lived in turbulent times of reform. Burns wrote his famous ‘Scots wa Hae’ about all freedom fighters – from Wallace, Bruce to Thomas Muir. Burns questioned, he looked for truth, he studied enlightened thought. He’s Scotland’s best known and loved poet. In my view Burns views on egalite, freedom of thought, respect for nature, his wish to preserve Scots voices – make Burns exactly the role model for Scotland’s independent future.

A NEW “Robert Burns and Political Culture” book raises the question of whether Burns is the best cultural icon for the Yes movement. Book suggests independence movement should cut ties with Robert Burns - 

Sunday National 22 Dec 2024 - 

https://www.thenational.scot/news/24812289.book-suggests-independence-movement-cut-ties-robert-burns/