If of herself she will not love, Nothing can make her: The devil take her! Nothing can make her: The devil take her! But we catch a very different amatory note, and that of the most personal and earnest kind, when the voice of Burns, and then the voice of Byron, were heard in English poetry. In Byron the note is almost always passionate. In Burns it is sometimes sentimental, sometimes jovial, sometimes humorous, sometimes frankly and offensively coarse. Many readers cannot do full justice to the North-Country dialect in the following lines, but the most Southern of accents could not quite spoil their simple beauty: The westlin wind blaws loud an’ shrill; The night’s baith mirk and rainy, O; But I’ll get my plaid, an’ out I’ll steal, An’ owre the hills to Nannie, O. Her face is fair, her heart is true, As spotless as she’s bonnie, O: The op’ning gowan, wat wi’ dew, Nae purer is than Nannie, O. The night’s baith mirk and rainy, O; An’ owre the hills to Nannie, O. As spotless as she’s bonnie, O: Nae purer is than Nannie, O. That is one amatory, one feminine note in Burns. Here is another: There’s nought but care on every han’, In every hour that passes, O; What signifies the life o’ man, An’ ’twere na for the lasses, O. [Pg 54] Auld Nature swears the lovely dears Her noblest work she classes, O: Her ’prentice han’ she tried on man, An’ then she made the lasses, O. In every hour that passes, O; An’ ’twere na for the lasses, O. [Pg 54] Her noblest work she classes, O: An’ then she made the lasses, O. I have no fault to find with these lines. They express a profound and enduring truth; and, if they do so with some little exaggeration, they do it half humorously, and so protect themselves against criticism. But I really think—I hope you will not deem me unchivalrous in saying so—we have, during the present century, heard too much, both in poetry and in prose romance, as we are now hearing too much in newspapers and magazines, of “the lasses, O.” Not that we can hear too much
Prev.
Back
Top