Masonic Poets Of Scotland—No. I.

In many of them his light shines Avith least obstruction , in its highest beauty and with pellucid clearness . The song is a short and simple species of composition , requiring genuine poetic feeling and truthfulness . Burns' songs , Carlyle

has truly remarked , " actually and in themselves are music—have received their life , and fashioned themselves together in the medium of harmony , as Venus rose from the bosom of the sea . " They resemble the little careless catches or drops of

song Avhich Shakespeare has here and there sprinkled over his dramas . With what tenderness does the poet sing , and yet with what vehemence and entireness ! There is a piercing Avail in his sorrow , ancl rapture in his joy . He burns Avith

the sternest ire , or laughs Avith the loudest or slyest mirth ; yet is he also sweet and soft . From the loud flowing revel of " Willie brew'd a peck o ' maut" to the rapt enthusiasm of sadness for " Mary in heaven ; " from the cordial greeting of

"Auld lang syne , " or the comic archness of " Duncan Gray , " to the fire-eyed strength of " Scots , wha hae , " meditated amidst drenching rain , Avhile riding over the moorlands—the stanzas shaped amidst the reverberation of thunderpeals ,

and the words as if tipped AVith lightning—Burns has spoken home to the heart . For men under every aspect save one , but the highest—for has man not " thoughts that Avander through eternity ? " or is passionate love to be his earthly

and only heaven ?—there is something to fix the mind and thrill the spirit . So have the songs of Burns become part of the valued property not of Scotland only , or of Britain , but of the countless thousands elsewhere who speak our language . The

mother sings them softly beside her cradled infant ; pure affection wearies not of hearing them . " The moors and mosses , many 0 , " not less than Australian sh ' eep-Avalks ancl Canadian forests , have thus had their weariness beguiled . Even where

Nile and Niger flow their cadences have been repeated , and as they are sung , perhaps beneath a tropic sky and near the towering palm-tree ; or midst wastes of snow ; or close by crowded wharfs , Avhere a new Avorld of interest or ambition invites

the bold heart and steady arm ; or by the campfire , amidst the almost oppressive ' undulations of the prairie ; as in the huts at home where poor men lie ; in such varied scenes they have thousands of times been suno ; -. In the cellar or the garret , musing on happier days , the auld wife may have " crooned them , " thinking of the cot where

Masonic Poets Of Scotland—No. I.

she Avas born , of father , mother , sister , lover , playmate , all or mostly all departed—the bright-hued and silver-haired alike mouldering in the dust , waiting the opening of earth ' s graves ! Or , Avhen did Scotchmen meet in a far and foreign land , but

home Avith its blessed memories was by their means recalled , the " burn stealing under the lang yellow broom , " the " bonnie broom" by which childhood strayed , and lassies " AVI' lint white locks" and eyes of liquid blue , looked shyly on strangers , or the "Lammas night , " when " corn rigs Avere bonnv" and the full-orbed moon shed silver on

the stocks . Such songs have made the tear start to the eye , and the breast heave Nvith emotion . Voices that once sang them to some of us shall sing no more ; and hearts that once responded to them have ceased to beat . " A man ' s a man for

a' that" has made the blood rush more SAviftly through the veins ; and , Avhen the temperate cup has been partaken of , how natural for young and old—hand linked in hand—heart knit to heartcare , tumult , turmoil for the time

forgotten—hownatural that the feelings of brotherhood should become stronger , as the days of "Auld Lang Syne" once again rise before the mind ? Scotchmen at least believe that Burns' place is both high , sure , and deserved among the masters

of song . The dead hut sceptered heroes , who still rule , Our spirits from their urns . *

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THERE aro minds so habituated to intrigue and mystery in themselves , and so prone to expect it from others , that they will never accept of a plain reason for a plain fact , if it hepossible to devise causes for it that are obscure , far-fetched , and usually not worth the carriage .