Robert Burns in Stirlingshire |
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acquaintance Adair admirers Allan Water Alva Auld Ayrshire ballad Bannockburn bard battle battle of Bannockburn Betty Bridge of Allan Bruce Burns Club BURNS IN STIRLINGSHIRE Burns literature Burns's visit bust Camelon Carron Carron Company Castle celebrated Centenary Burns chair character connection copy Corbet correspondence DEAR Diary Dumfries Dunlop Edinburgh edition English epistle Excise Falkirk gathering genius give Glasgow Harvieston honor Hughie Graham interest James John journey letter Lockhart London Mauchline memory mind Miss Moore never Nicol NOTE occasion opinion pane Picts poems poet poet's visit poetic present reference regarding reply rhymes Robert Burns Robert Chambers says Scotland Scots wha hae Scott Douglas Scottish shire song stanza Stirling Castle Stirling Lines Stirlingshire story Street sung Thomson toasts took tour town tradition tune verses visit to Stirling volume Wallace Monument William Wallace window writing written wrote Zeluco
Popular passages
Page 68 - Wha will be a traitor knave ? Wha can fill a coward's grave ? Wha sae base as be a slave ? Let him turn and flee ! Wha, for Scotland's king and law, Freedom's sword will strongly draw, Freeman stand, or freeman fa...
Page 75 - Let him follow me ! By oppression's woes and pains By your sons in servile chains ! We will drain our dearest veins, But they shall be free ! Lay the proud usurpers low ! Tyrants fall in every foe ! Liberty's in every blow ! — Let us do or die...
Page 40 - ... add to these incentives to social life, my reputation for bookish knowledge, a certain wild logical talent, and a strength of thought something like the rudiments of good sense...
Page 36 - In my infant and boyish days, too, I owed much to an old woman who resided in the family, remarkable for her ignorance, credulity, and superstition. She had, I suppose, the largest collection in the country of tales and songs concerning devils, ghosts, fairies, brownies, witches, warlocks, spunkies, kelpies, elf-candles, dead-lights, wraiths, apparitions, cantraips, giants, enchanted towers, dragons, and other trumpery.
Page 37 - ... giants, enchanted towers, dragons, and other trumpery. This cultivated the latent seeds of poetry; but had so strong an effect on my imagination, that to this hour, in my nocturnal rambles, I sometimes keep a sharp look-out in suspicious places; and though nobody can be more sceptical than I am in such matters, yet it often takes an effort of philosophy to shake off these idle terrors.
Page 41 - I learnt to fill my glass, and to mix without fear in a drunken squabble, yet I went on with a high hand with my geometry, till the sun entered Virgo, a month which is always a carnival in my bosom, when a charming fillette, who lived next door to the school, overset my trigonometry, and set me off at a tangent from the sphere of my studies.
Page 45 - I was pretty confident my poems would meet with some applause; but at the worst, the roar of the Atlantic would deafen the voice of censure, and the novelty of West Indian scenes make me forget neglect.
Page 41 - I did nothing but craze the faculties of my soul about her, or steal out to meet her; and the two last nights of my stay in the country, had sleep been a mortal sin, the image of this modest and innocent girl had kept me guiltlesS.
Page 38 - You know our country custom of coupling a man and woman together as partners in the labors of harvest. In my fifteenth autumn, my partner was a bewitching creature, a year younger than myself. My scarcity of English denies me the power of doing her justice in that language, but you know the Scottish idiom: she was a "bonnie, sweet, sonsie lass.