Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, ROBERT BURNS AND MISTER PIERPONT MORGAN, by JOHN LAURENCE RENTOUL


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

ROBERT BURNS AND MISTER PIERPONT MORGAN, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: O, heard ye, brither scots, the 'clash'
Last Line: Where his lone heart is sleeping!
Alternate Author Name(s): Gage, Gervais
Subject(s): Burns, Robert (1759-1796); Manuscripts; Morgan, John Pierpont (1837-1913); Paper; Poetry & Poets; Printing And Printers


"BURNS'S MANUSCRIPTS—Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan, the American Financier, has purchased Lord
Rosebery's Collection of Robert Burns's manuscripts for 50,000 dollars. Among them is the MS.
of 'Auld Lang Syne.'"—London Cablegram in Australian Newspapers, Thursday, March 8, 1906.

"BURNS'S MANUSCRIPTS—The statement was incorrect. The MSS. bought by Mr. Pierpont Morgan
(which were said to include that of 'Auld Lang Syne') were not those owned by Lord
Rosebery."—London Cablegram, ditto, March 9, 1906.

O, HEARD ye, brither Scots, the "clash"
How Yankee dollar-payment
Has bought the wale o' script an' hash
O' Burns's cast-off raiment?

'Mang twirls o' Fortune's wheel, sae queer,
Its antics, frisks, and capers,
Sure, this is drollest: gamblin' gear
Has filched Rab Burns's papers!—

The leaf still blotted wi' his tears,
The strong heart's outpoured passion,
The wit that woke the slumbering years,
The scorn o' wealth an' fashion.

Man, when they bought my England's ships
I felt a sudden scunner;
But to filch Burns's manuscrip's
Might mak' the auld Deil wunner!

Their bribe got back a word o' scorn,
Voiced in deep-throated German:—
"Wilt buy the crib where Christ was born,
Filch Calvary or Hermon?

"Wilt bribe the light from Heaven on high
With pelf of Wall Street miser?"
So spake, the flame in his clear eye,
The frank-voiced, steel-girt Kaiser.

Were there nae rantin' lads o' Doon
Wad tak' some tar-an'-feather,
An' hunt the Yankee gamblin' loon
Far frae the Scottish heather?

O Poet of the Dawn,—that sent
The world's young heart a leaping
When Cant and drowsy Sentiment
Had numbed its soul to sleeping,—

Thy finger-prints on stop and key
Of Love's weird lyric organ,
O Rab, are sairly gaen aglee,
Gear-grabbed by Pierpont Morgan!

But, O, the organ, and the soul
That woke for Man its rapture,
What gear could count its worth on scroll,
What gold its voice could capture?—

The "vox humana" in its sigh,
With song of wild birds' chaunting,
The lone waif's broken-hearted cry,
All deeps of Memory haunting:

The pause of Nature's rhythmic pain
Athwart the gladder singing;
The discords, like the storm-swept main,
Some fuller concord bringing:

The anger of the wintry blast
Out on the moorland dreary,
Wailings through eldritch shadows cast
From crag and turret eerie:

The lark's blithe carol in the blue
Above the mountain daisy:
The "auld brig's" moan, as jut and thew
Strain in the snow-flood "crazy":

The warlock-skirl o' midnight dance
That startled Tam o' Shanter,
The clang of hooves, the stride and prance
Of Maggie's quickening canter:

The warbling wild of "Old Dundee"
The cottar's worship voicing;
The "Jolly Beggars'" ranting glee,
Wild fiddling and rejoicing;

The crackling nuts o' Hallowe'en,
The tankard's jovial clatter;
The wimpling hum, through shade and sheen,
Of Doon or Afton water:

The Autumn winds that wail and rave
Above the stook and stibble,
While their bit morsel in the "thrave"
The cozy wee mice nibble:

The "Auld Lang Syne" of Joy or Pain
When hand clasps hand in greeting,
Or heart-storm bursting into rain
In Love's last anguished meeting.

Oh, all the wild winds played on thee!
The voice of bird and river,
The outcast's moan, the sough of tree
Through thee sound on for ever.

O Burns, among the deathless four,
In deathless chaunt of Browning,
Who march fair Freedom's van before
Toward the free Peoples' crowning,

Or watch from their prophetic urns
The far light Earthward streaming,—
The "Shakspere, Milton, Shelley, Burns,"—
It dawns, what thou wast dreaming!

The great young poets at thy grave
Wept in their love and sorrow;
From thine electric force the "lave"
Their flame and glamour borrow.

Why should this coof, wi' a' his gear,
Wrung from his railroad jobbing,
Finger those leaves, now dead and sere,
Where once Rab's heart was sobbing?

"O Rab, ye asked for bread, an' there
They gie a stane above ye,
An' mak' pretence o' feckless prayer
An' din, to ape they love ye!"

So spake the mother heart, that knew
His sin, which on the morrow
Its shame would write in heart's blood, rue
Its wrong in deathless sorrow!

O bard of all Earth's toiling poor,
That braved jade "Fortune's cummock,"
And earned the scanty meal wi' dour
"Proud independent stomach,"

This page wi' tears o' shame grows damp,
"Guid faith, I mauna fa' that!"
"The rank," he sang, "'s the guinea stamp,
The man's the gowd for a' that!"

He flung his daunting words o' scorn
At birkie, coof, an' a' that;
"We daur be poor," as we were born,
God's "royal blue," an' a' that.

O shame, the words his pen inscribed,—
'Twould rouse a pagan's choler,—
From Scotland's gouty hands are bribed
By the Almighty Dollar!

O dead, dry ink, and rusty pen,
O gear-bought, crumpled pages,
His song shall stir the hearts of men,
Unbought, down all the ages!

O lover of the flower and bird,
Man's toil thy deathless story,
The heart of poor and peer is stirred
By thy strange song and glory!

And, mark ye, Scotland's brilliant son
Holds Rab's main script in keeping,
And plants a "primrose" on the dun
Where his lone heart is sleeping!





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