No More Learning

Is this the power in freedom's war,
That wont to bid the battle rage?
Behold that eye which shot immortal hate,
Crushing the despot's proudest bearing!

* * * * *




CXXXIX.

VERSES

TO A YOUNG LADY.

[This young lady was the daughter of the poet's friend, Graham of
Fintray; and the gift alluded to was a copy of George Thomson's
Select Scottish Songs: a work which owes many attractions to the lyric
genius of Burns. ]


Here, where the Scottish muse immortal lives,
In sacred strains and tuneful numbers join'd,
Accept the gift;--tho' humble he who gives,
Rich is the tribute of the grateful mind.

So may no ruffian feeling in thy breast,
Discordant jar thy bosom-chords among;
But peace attune thy gentle soul to rest,
Or love ecstatic wake his seraph song.

Or pity's notes in luxury of tears,
As modest want the tale of woe reveals;
While conscious virtue all the strain endears,
And heaven-born piety her sanction seals.

* * * * *




CXL.

THE VOWELS.

A TALE.

[Burns admired genius adorned by learning; but mere learning without
genius he always regarded as pedantry. Those critics who scrupled too
much about words he called eunuchs of literature, and to one, who
taxed him with writing obscure language in questionable grammar, he
said, "Thou art but a Gretna-green match-maker between vowels and
consonants! "]


'Twas where the birch and sounding thong are ply'd,
The noisy domicile of pedant pride;
Where ignorance her darkening vapour throws,
And cruelty directs the thickening blows;
upon a time, Sir Abece the great,
In all his pedagogic powers elate,
His awful chair of state resolves to mount,
And call the trembling vowels to account. --

First enter'd A, a grave, broad, solemn wight,
But, ah!
deform'd, dishonest to the sight!
His twisted head look'd backward on the way,
And flagrant from the scourge he grunted, _ai! _

Reluctant, E stalk'd in; with piteous race
The justling tears ran down his honest face!
That name! that well-worn name, and all his own,
Pale he surrenders at the tyrant's throne!
The pedant stifles keen the Roman sound
Not all his mongrel diphthongs can compound;
And next the title following close behind,
He to the nameless, ghastly wretch assign'd.

The cobweb'd gothic dome resounded Y!
In sullen vengeance, I, disdain'd reply:
The pedant swung his felon cudgel round,
And knock'd the groaning vowel to the ground!

In rueful apprehension enter'd O,
The wailing minstrel of despairing woe;
Th' Inquisitor of Spain the most expert
Might there have learnt new mysteries of his art;
So grim, deform'd, with horrors entering U,
His dearest friend and brother scarcely knew!

As trembling U stood staring all aghast,
The pedant in his left hand clutched him fast,
In helpless infants' tears he dipp'd his right,
Baptiz'd him _eu_, and kick'd him from his sight.

* * * * *




CXLI.

VERSES

TO JOHN RANKINE.

[With the "rough, rude, ready-witted Rankine," of Adamhill, in
Ayrshire, Burns kept up a will o'-wispish sort of a correspondence in
rhyme, till the day of his death: these communications, of which this
is one, were sometimes graceless, but always witty. It is supposed,
that those lines were suggested by Falstaff's account of his ragged
recruits:--

"I'll not march through Coventry with them, that's flat! "]


Ae day, as Death, that grusome carl,
Was driving to the tither warl'
A mixtie-maxtie motley squad,
And mony a guilt-bespotted lad;
Black gowns of each denomination,
And thieves of every rank and station,
From him that wears the star and garter,
To him that wintles in a halter:
Asham'd himsel' to see the wretches,
He mutters, glowrin' at the bitches,
"By G--d, I'll not be seen behint them,
Nor 'mang the sp'ritual core present them,
Without, at least, ae honest man,
To grace this d--d infernal clan. "
By Adamhill a glance he threw,
"L--d G--d!