Читать книгу: «Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844», страница 19
The proceedings in that Pavilion were a just and fitting conclusion to the splendid jubilee of the day. Some no doubt were absent, whom the public would gladly have seen there; for, on an occasion like this, the general wish must have been, that all the greatness, and talent, and learning of the land should have united in the National Festival. But that absence, though regretted, did not, in any degree, lessen the enthusiasm. Indeed, as we looked around the meeting, and saw, unelevated to any conspicuous place, Delta, and Chambers, and Ferrier, and a hundred other distinguished men, not only content, but proud to bear testimony by their simple presence to the genuine purpose of the assembly, it was hardly possible to wish for more. Every individual feeling was merged in the common desire, that the day should be consecrated to its own peculiar object; and consecrated it was, if unanimity, and eloquence, and tears, and the outpouring of all that is lofty, and generous, and sincere, can consecrate aught on earth—where error and frailty must abide, but where the judgment of man in his weakness, may not, and dare not, usurp the functions of the All-seeing and Eternal Judge.
And now we close the hasty record of a scene that will be remembered so long as Scotland is a nation. Some there may be—for there are malignant and jaundiced spirits every where—who may sneer at the solemnities we have witnessed; and it is well that they should do so, for the praise of such men is no honour—far better that it should be withheld. We conclude by again adopting the language of Mr Aird, which leaves no word unsaid.
“Such has been the tribute of a country to her national poet. She furnished him with the rich materials of his song—with her dear victories set in blood; with the imperishable memory of her independence; with the character of her sons and daughters, simple as water, but strong as the waterfall; with her snatches of old-world minstrelsy, surely never composed by mortal man, but spilt from the overflowing soul of sorrow and gladness; with her music, twin-born, say rather one with her minstrelsy; with her fairy belief, the most delicately beautiful mythology in the history of the human mind, and strangely contrasted with the rugged character of her people, a people of sturt and strife; with her heroic faith; with the graves of her headless martyrs, in green shaw or on grim moor, visited by many a slip of sunshine streaming down from behind the cloud in the still autumnal afternoon. These, and all the other priceless elements of ‘the auld Scottish glory,’ he—the national bard—compacted and crystallized into a Poetry which, by innumerable points of sympathetic contact, carries back into the national heart, by ever-conducting issue, the thoughts and feelings which itself first gave forth to his plastic genius; and thus there is an eternal interchange of cause and effect, to the perpetuation and propagation of patriotism, and all that constitutes national spirit and character.
“THEREFORE it was fitting that such a national tribute should be paid to such a national benefactor.”
STANZAS FOR THE BURNS’ FESTIVAL
BY DELTA
I
Stir the beal-fire, wave the banner,
Bid the thundering cannon sound—
Rend the skies with acclamation,
Stun the woods and waters round—
Till the echoes of our gathering
Turn the world’s admiring gaze
To this act of duteous homage
Scotland to her poet pays.
Fill the banks and braes with music,
Be it loud and low by turns—
This we owe the deathless glory,
That the hapless fate of Burns.
II
Born within the lowly cottage
To a destiny obscure,
Doom’d through youth’s exulting spring-time
But to labour and endure—
Yet Despair he elbow’d from him;
Nature breathed with holy joy,
In the hues of morn and evening,
On the eyelids of the boy;
And his country’s Genius bound him
Laurels for his sun-burn’d brow,
When inspired and proud she found him,
Like Elisha, at the plough.
III
On, exulting in his magic,
Swept the gifted peasant on—
Though his feet were on the greensward,
Light from heaven around him shone;
At his conjuration, demons
Issued from their darkness drear;
Hovering round on silver pinions,
Angels stoop’d his songs to hear;
Bow’d the Passions to his bidding,
Terror gaunt, and Pity calm;
Like the organ pour’d his thunder,
Like the lute his fairy psalm.
IV
Lo, when clover-swathes lay round him,
Or his feet the furrow press’d,
He could mourn the sever’d daisy,
Or the mouse’s ruin’d nest;
Woven of gloom and glory, visions
Haunting throng’d his twilight hour;
Birds enthrall’d him with sweet music,
Tempests with their tones of power;
Eagle-wing’d his mounting spirit
Custom’s rusty fetters spurn’d;
Tasso-like, for Jean he melted
Wallace-like, for Scotland burn’d!
V
Scotland!—dear to him was Scotland,
In her sons and in her daughters,
In her Highlands,—Lowlands,—Islands,—
Regal woods, and rushing waters;—
In the glory of her story,
When her tartans fired the field,—
Scotland! oft betray’d—beleagur’d—
Scotland! never known to yield!
Dear to him her Doric language,—
Thrill’d his heart-strings at her name;—
And he left her more than rubies,
In the riches of his fame.
VI
Sons of England!—Sons of Erin!
Ye who, journeying from afar,
Throng with us the shire of Coila,
Led by Burns’s guiding star—
Proud we greet you—ye will join us,
As, on this triumphant day,
To the champions of his genius
Grateful thanks we duly pay—
Currie—Chambers—Lockhart—Wilson—
Carlyle—who his bones to save
From the wolfish fiend, Detraction,
Couch’d like lions round his grave.
VII
Daughter of the poet’s mother!
Here we hail thee with delight;
Shower’d be every earthly blessing
On thy locks of silver white!—
Sons of Burns, a hearty welcome,
Welcome home from India’s strand,
To a heart-loved land far dearer,
Since your glorious Father’s land:—
Words are worthless—look around you—
Labour’d tomes far less could say
To the sons of such a father,
Than the sight of such a day!
VIII
Judge not ye, whose thoughts are fingers,
Of the hands that witch the lyre—
Greenland has its mountain icebergs,
Ætna has its heart of fire;
Calculation has its plummet;
Self-control its iron rules;
Genius has its sparkling fountains;
Dulness has its stagnant pools;
Like a halcyon on the waters,
Burns’s chart disdain’d a plan—
In his soarings he was heavenly,
In his sinkings he was man.
IX
As the sun from out the orient
Pours a wider, warmer light,
Till he floods both earth and ocean,
Blazing from the zenith’s height;
So the glory of our poet,
In its deathless power serene,
Shines—as rolling time advances—
Warmer felt, and wider seen:
First Doon’s banks and braes contain’d it,
Then his country form’d its span;
Now the wide world is its empire,
And its throne the heart of man.
X
Home returning, each will carry
Proud remembrance of this day,
When exulted Scotland’s bosom
Homage to her bard to pay;—
When our jubilee to brighten,
Eglinton with Wilson vied,
Wealth’s regards and Rank’s distinctions
For the season set aside;
And the peasant, peer, and poet,
Each put forth an equal claim,
For the twining of his laurel
In the wreath of Burns’s fame!
