Read The Canongate Burns Online
Authors: Robert Burns
The Canongate Burns (88 page)
Tune: I Had a Horse, and I Had nae Mair
First printed in Cromek, 1808.
When first I came to Stewart Kyle
        My mind it was na steady,
not
Where'er I gaed, where'er I rade,
went, rode
        A mistress still I had ay:
But when I came roun' by Mauchline toun,
round, town
        Not dreadin any body,
My heart was caught before I thought,
        And by a Mauchline lady â.
The first written record of this work is entered in the
First Common
place Book
, dated August 1785, although the fragment was probably written before this date. The âMauchline lady' is assumed to be Jean Armour. Burns met Jean after he moved from Lochlie to Mossgiel.
or The Holy Tulzie
brawl
First printed by Stewart and Meikle in pamphlet form, 1796.
Blockheads with reason wicked wits abhor,
But fool with fool is barbarous civil war.
Pope, Dunciad, Bk. III, ll. 175â6.
O a' ye pious, godly Flocks
all
Weel fed on pastures orthodox,
well
Wha now will keep you frae the fox who,
from
               Or worryin tykes?
dogs
5
Or wha will tent the waifs an' crocks
who, tend, stragglers, old ewes
               About the dykes?
stone wallsÂ
The twa best Herds in a' the wast,
two, west
That e'er gae gospel horn a blast
gave
These five an' twenty simmers past,
summers
10
              O dool to tell!
sad
Hae had a bitter, black out cast
have, quarrel
               Atween themsel. â
between
O Moodie, man, and wordy Russel,
How could you raise so vile a bustle?
15
Ye'll see how New-Light herds will whistle,
               And think it fine!
The Lord's cause gat na sic a twistle
got not such a twist
               Sin' I hae min'. â
since, can recall
O Sirs! whae'er wad hae expeckit
whoever would have expected
20
Your duty ye wad sae negleckit?
would so neglect
Ye wha were no by lairds respeckit,
who, respected
               To wear the Plaid;
But by the very Brutes eleckit
elected
               To be their Guide. â
25
What Flock wi' Moodie's Flock could rank,
Sae hale an' hearty every shank?
so, leg
Nae poison'd soor Arminian stank
no, sour, stagnant pool
               He let them taste;
But Calvin's fountain-head they drank,
30
             That was a feast!
The Fulmart, Wil-cat, Brock, an' Tod
polecat, wildcat, badger, fox
Weel kend his voice thro' a' the wood;
well knew
He knew their ilka hole an' road,
every
               Baith out and in:
both
35
An' liked weel to shed their blood
well
               An' sell their skin. â
What herd like Russell tell'd his tale;
His voice was heard thro' muir and dale:
moor
He kend the Lord's sheep ilka tail,
knew, every
40
              O'er a' the height;
An' tell'd gin they were sick or hale
when/if, well
               At the first sight. â
He fine a maingie sheep could scrub,
dirty
Or nobly swing the Gospel-club;
45
Or New-Light Herds could nicely drub
               And pay their skin;
flog
Or hing them o'er the burning dub,
hang, pool
               Or shute them in. â
heave
Sic twa â O, do I live to see't,
such two
50
Sic famous twa sud disagree't
such, two, should
An' names like âVillain, Hypocrite,'
               Each other gi'en;
giving
While enemies wi' laughin spite
               Say, âNeither's liein.' â
lying
55
O ye wha tent the Gospel-fauld,
who pay heed to, fold
Thee, Duncan deep, and Peebles, shaul,
shallow
But chiefly great Apostle Auld,
               We trust in thee,
That thou wilt work them hot an' cauld
cold
60
               To gar them gree. â
agree
Consider, Sirs, how we're beset;
There 's scarce a new Herd that we get
But comes frae 'mang that cursed Set
from among
               I winna name:
will not
65
I trust in Heaven to see them het hot
               Yet in a flame. â
There's D'rymple has been lang our fae,
Dalrymple, long, foe
M'Gill has wrought us meikle wae;
great mischief
An' that curst rascal ca'd Mcquhey,
called
70
               An' baith the Shaws,
both
Wha aft hae made us black an' blae
often have, blue
               Wi' vengefu' paws. â
Auld Wodrow lang has wrought mischief,
old, long
We trusted death wad bring relief;
would
75
But he has gotten, to our grief,
               Ane to succeed him;
one
A chap will soundly buff our beef
strike our flesh
               I meikle dread him. â
greatly
An' mony mae that I could tell
many more
80
Wha fair and openly rebel;
who
Forby Turn-coats amang oursel,
besides, among ourselves
               There 's Smith for ane;
one
I doubt he's but a Gray-neck still
a gambler
               An' that ye'll fin'. â
find
85
O a' ye flocks o'er a' the hills,
By mosses, meadows, moors, an' fells,
Come, join your counsel and your skills
               To cowe the Lairds,
humble
And get the Brutes the power themsels
themselves
90
               To chuse their Herds. â
chose
Then Orthodoxy yet may prance,
And Learning in a woody dance;
hangman's noose
An' that curst cur ca'd Common Sense
called
               That bites sae sair,
so sore
95
Be banish'd o'er the sea to France
               Let him bark there. â
Then Shaw's an' Dairymple's eloquence,
M'Gill's close nervous excellence,
Mcquhey's pathetic manly sense,
100
               An' guid M'Math,
good
Wi' Smith wha thro' the heart can glance,
who
               May a' pack aff. â
go packing
This work was written prior to
Holy Willie's Prayer
, probably late in 1784 or early in 1785. It first appeared with Stewart and Meikle in
pamphlet form, probably just after the poet's death and again in 1799 and then in book format in their main 1801 collection.
It is a satire on a public row that erupted between two clerics, Mr Alexander Moodie of Riccarton and Mr John Russel of Kilmarnock. Their disagreement over parish boundaries led to a Church court hearing at Irvine in which both men, Auld Licht Calvinists, engaged in what Burns called a âbitter and shameless quarrel ⦠at the time when the hue and cry against patronage was at the worst' (British Museum, Egerton ms., no. 1656). He thought highly enough of it to write in some detail about it in his âautobiographical' letter to Dr Moore:
âThe first of my poetic offspring that saw the light was a burlesque lamentation on a quarrel between two revd. Calvinists, both of them dramatis personae in my Holy Fair.â I had an idea myself that the piece had some merit; but to prevent the worst, I gave a copy of it to a friend who was very fond of these things, and told him I could not guess who was the Author of it, but that I thought it pretty clever.â With a certain side of both clergy and laity it met a roar of applause.â Holy Willie's Prayer next made its appearance and alarmed the kirk-Session so much that they held three several meetings to look over their holy artillery, if any of it was pointed against profane Rhymers.â Unluckily for me, my idle wanderings led me, on another side, point blank within the reach of their heaviest metal (Letter 125).
His âidle wanderings', of course, were sexual. The consequences of Jean Armour's pregnancy, the hostility of her family and the punitive engagement of the church in the business pushed him towards Jamaica for fear of something worse:
I had for some time been sculking fromcovert to covert under all the terrors of Jail; as some ill-advised ungrateful people had uncoupled the merciless legal Pack at my heels ⦠(Letter 125).
There is always in Burns something of the hunted fox pursued by varied packs. The younger man always thought he was crafty enough to outrun them. What he gives witness to in this poem is the degree to which his specific, personal confrontation with provincial Ayrshire, âAuld Licht' Calvinism led him to a wider understanding of the struggle for the soul of Presbyterian Scotland between âAuld' and âNew' Licht Calvinism. Kinsley gives a cogent
account of this quarrel as, after the convulsions of the seventeenth century, it raged unremittingly through the eighteenth century.
By the patronage Act of 1712 (10 Annae cap. 21) the right of presenting ministers to vacant parishes was restored to the lay patrons who were heirs of the original donors of ecclesiastical properties. This violated the Act of Security (1707) which protected the polity of the Presbyterian Kirk at the Union of the Parliaments. Patronage was accepted by the âModerate' core of the Kirk, which after the Revolution of 1688 had acquiesced in the co-operation of the ecclesiastical and civil powers; but the issue brought about a secession in 1732, when an Act of Assembly gave the power of election to heritors and elders whenever the patron did not exercise his right. A further dispute took place in 1747 over the Burgher's Oath, which required holders of public office to affirm the religion âpresently professed in this kingdom'. âTo a sober Presbyterian no proposition seemed more self-evident. Yet by means of perverse ingenuity in torturing words, did these wrong-headed men insist that it was inconsistent with their principles and professions' (Ramsay of Ochtertyre, ii. 12); and the âAnti-Burghers' seceded. The two parties formed âdistinct and independent synods, which hated each other worse than the Jesuits did the Jansenists' (ibid., ii. 13). The Burghers later divided on the issue of civil compulsion in religious affairs. The minority, holding to the obligations laid upon them by the Solemn League and Covenant, seceded as âOriginal Burghers' or âAuld Lichts'; the majority, who wished to modify Presbyterian commitment to the Covenant, were named âNew Lichts.'
Below differences in attitude to the establishment, these terms represent a deeper distinction of theology and temperament. The âAuld Lichts' were âorthodox', Calvinist â with traditional emphasis on the doctrines of original sin, election, and predestinationâstern in their discipline, evangelical and rhetorical in their preaching. The âNew Lichts' were âArminian' (see ll. 27â30
n
.), âModerate', liberal in their theology and moralistic in their preaching (Vol. III, pp. 1045â6).
At the core of the poem, however, is a deeply serious spiritual problem. The image of the shepherd and his sheep, the nature of pastoral care, runs through both Old and New Testaments. For example Ezek. 34 which condemns shepherds who âfeed themselves'
but âfeed not the flock', the parable of the good shepherd (John 10) or Christ's final appearance when he commands him to âfeed my lambs' (John 21:15). Milton, of course, in
Lycidas
had raged against those priests who had inverted, perverted Christ's pastoral instruction. To McGuirk's seminal work on Miltonic resonance in Burns, including
Lycidas
(âLoose Canons: Milton and Burns, Artsong and Folksong',
Love
and
Liberty
, ed. K.G. Simpson, 1997), we should surely add this passage from that poem as relevant to Burns's assault on clerical corruption:
He shook his mitred locks, and stern bespake,
How well could I have spared for thee, young swain,
Enow of such as for their bellies' sake,
Creep and intrude, and climb into the fold?
Of other care they little reckoning make,
Than how to scramble at the shearers' feast,
And shove away the worthy bidden guest.
Blind mouths! that scarce themselves know how to hold
A sheep-hook, or have learned aught else the least
That to the faithful herdman's art belongs!
What recks it them? What need they? They are sped;
And when they list, their lean and flashy songs
Grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw,
The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed,
But swoll'n with wind, and the rank mist they draw,
Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread:
Besides what the grim wolf with privy paw
Daily devours apace, and nothing said,
But that two-handed engine at the door,
Stands ready to smite once, and smite no more.