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| Author: | Brian |
| E-mail: | bjhighkey56@gmail.com |
| Date: | 1/25/2020 3:24:02 PM |
| Subject: | Burns Night |
| Message: | Rabbie Burns was born in 1759, only fourteen years after the second Jacobite uprising. Scotland was a country recently ravaged in a lost war, frightened for its future and unsure sometimes of its marvellously proud history. By the age of fourteen, Burns was writing poems and songs. He became devoted to the folk music he heard played and sung by his countrymen (and women); he collected, transcribed, edited and arranged many of those. He also loved many of the women, and they loved him; Rabbie had children with at least three of his lovers. By the age of 25, Burns was a celebrated, poet, songwriter and raconteur; he was the toast of many parties in Edinburgh and spent almost four years living and working in the Scottish capital city. Burns disliked much of the snobbery and profiteering associated with the ‘professional’ publishing and literary circles. Burns knew he was a good (great) writer and others did too. Though he enjoyed some brief moments of that certain stardom, he could not sell his soul and sought a simpler, poorer, more inspired and more artistic life. He returned to live in Galloway, the region of his birth. Burns died of rheumatic fever, or associated complications, in 1796. Though living only to the age of thirty-seven, Burns wrote six hundred and thirty two poems and songs. Many are still sung today and will be for many years to come. In every positive and productive and poetic aspect of their lives, Robert Burns and Mickey Newbury are kindred spirits. In `59 In ’59 a bonnie bairn A lad ahead o’ time He heard the music Sang the songs He had the ‘sin o’ rhyme’ And many folk, frae yonder ben Cried listening with his muse They heard the poems Knew the tales The whites, reds, blacks and blues Well feted by the moneyed men Prime prose for any party But four years later Tired and torn He didna’ breathe sae hearty In `89, each year lived twice, Safe hame tae Galloway An unpaid piper Midst his kin Still writing airs each day In `96 in fever sore One epitaph too many Fair fa’ oor Rabbie Auld lang syne A better Bard than any |
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 Burns Night by Brian  at 1/25/2020 3:24:02 PM |
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