Robert Burns gives hope to the world, not just to Scots
With apologies to Rupert Brooke , there is tonight a corner of every foreign field that will be for a while Scottish.
Scots, wherever they are, will make a special effort to sing the praises of Robert Burns , celebrating the anniversary of his birth in 1759.
Burns Night is huge celebration. It is not just about the whisky and the haggis, although both make contributions. It is about the words and meanings of this ploughman poet, and how they remain relevant today in what this pessimist reckons is just about the most uncomfortable period I've lived ever through. For my family's sake, I hope I'm wrong.
We are genuinely proud to continue to share the words and music of Robert with the rest of the world, even if there's hardly any part of the world where he's not known.
I've drank to his health in Brussels, where the haggis was served by a Belgian and piped in by a German while the toast to his immortal memory was delivered by an extremely merry English lord.
Communists in the Soviet Union believed that his poetry, signifying the brotherhood of man, made him a kind of socialist. "The rank is but the guinea's stamp, the man's a man the goud (gold) for a' that," as he wrote. The SNP can find stanzas that prove he's a nationalist, whereas I can find others that prove he's a black-hearted Unionist.
His words are known and argued over everywhere, even if those who utter or sing them don't know they're his. Burns did admit that favourite song of farewell, Auld Lang Syne , was not all his own work. There were other versions, but his is the one most likely to be sung today, even if, for this purist, too often wrongly.
I share the view of the international authority on the poet, the Robert Burns Federation, which hails the depth and understanding of human nature in his poetry. Take, for instance, that other famous Burns passage in his poem To A Mouse , about a mouse whose nest he's just accidentally ploughed up, the "best laid schemes of mice and men … always going wrong".
Or his apparent gloom about the world in which he lives. Is ours as bad? With the worst set of international relations I can remember. This is best summed up by a lesser known verse from the same poem. Still addressing his mouse, Burns says: "Still, thou art blest, compared wi' me! The present only toucheth thee. But oh! I backward cast my e'e, On prospects drear! An' forward tho' I canna see, I guess and fear!"
I second that fear. However, he does offer a slender hope that the current atmosphere might be changed if people realised how ridiculous and dangerous they often appeared.
In To A Louse Burns sees a creepy crawly in a posh lady's hat and tries to warn its wearer not to show off, saying, "Oh wad some pow'r the giftie gie us, To see oursels as others see us! It wad frae monie a blunder free us, And foolish notion".
But is there any self awareness in Donald Trump ? Like Robert Burns, I live in hope.
