Robert

BURNS

SELECTED POEMS

EDITED

WITH INTRODUCTION, NOTES, AND

A GLOSSARY

BY

J. LOGIE ROBERTSON, M.A.

Oxford

AT THE CLARENDON PRESS

1889

[All rights reserved]

PREFATORY NOTE.

It is hoped that this Selection from the poetry of Burns, while fairly representative of his best work, will serve also to shew the versatility of his genius. The Jolly Beggars and Holy Willie's Prayer it has been found necessary to exclude altogether, brilliant and characteristic specimens of his poetical quality though they are. From the admitted poems an occasional line here, or stanza there, has, for one reason or another, also been dropped. It is with the utmost reluctance that the Editor has ventured upon any alteration of the Text. These alterations are few, and of the slightest.

The Selection has been divided into 'Poems' and 'Songs,' and each series arranged as accurately as possible in strict chronological order. It is not only that such an arrangement reveals the development of the Author's poetical faculty: it also casts a suggestive light upon the history of his life. Special attention has been paid to the Notes. Here only I have offered, as the occasion required, and the space at my disposal permitted, some remarks on the characteristics of Burns's style, and on his indebtedness to the Scottish and English poets of the eighteenth century.

Care has been taken, by collation with the various editions, to give the most approved Text; and where

variations of value occur, they have been quoted in the Notes. The form, or spelling, of the words of the Text is for the most part Burns's own. It is to be noted, however, that there is considerable difference in respect of verbal form between the Kilmarnock and the Edinburgh Editions of his Poems. Some deference has occasionally been shewn to familiar usage-' bonnie,' for example, has been substituted for ‘bonie.'

The Glossary, it is believed, is full; it is as correct as I have been able to make it. The derivation of the principal words has been given only where it seemed safe, or at least reasonable.

The Introduction is not more than it professes to be— a clear outline of the life of Burns. I have, however, given a prominence, usually denied, to his early training. The outline is to some extent necessarily supplemented in the Notes, for the Poems are largely autobiographical. The best life of Burns, indeed, is still to be found in his poems and letters.

In regard to the pronunciation of Scottish words, it would, I think, be of little service to lay down hard and fast rules, even if it were possible to do so. The form is for the most part phonetic, and the rhyme will often suggest the pronunciation. The student who has mastered the language of Chaucer should find it an easier task to master that of Burns, pronunciation and all.

J. LOGIE ROBERTSON.

LOCKHARTON Terrace, Slateford, N.B.

27th December, 1888.

INTRODUCTION.

A RACE of yeomen or small farmers of the name of Burnes had been resident in Kincardineshire for at least two centuries when, in 1748, William, the third son of one of them, reluctantly left his father's house at Clochnahill, and travelled southward in search of a livelihood. He was then twentysix years of age, and beyond health and a general knowledge of agricultural work carried from his native county little else that was likely to be of service to him, except a certificate which truthfully testified that he was the son of an honest farmer and a very well-inclined lad himself. He got as far south as Edinburgh, and then turning his face westward, after a wandering life of nine years in all, settled at last on a small croft of seven acres on the right bank of the Doon, about two miles south from the town of Ayr. Here, on the edge of the public road, in the hamlet of Alloway, he built with his own hands, out of the rudest materials, a cottage of two rooms, to which in the following December he brought home his young wife, Agnes Brown, from the adjoining parish of Maybole. In this clay cabin Robert Burns, their eldest child, was born on the twenty-fifth day of January, 1759. Three more children were born, and then, after a tenancy of the croft of over eight years, William Burnes was induced in the interest of his young and increasing family to take a bold step. His croft maintained a cow, and yielded vegetables for the Ayr market, but he had early found it necessary to improve its slender gains by taking wages as a jobbing gardener. His principal employer was the Provost of Ayr, and this gentleman happening to have a farm to let in the neighbourhood, William Burnes ventured