DUNEDIN BURNS CLUB

Otago Daily Times, Issue 16601, 26 January 1916, Page 7

DUNEDIN BURNS CLUB

ANNIVERSARY OF THE POET. The Garrison Hall held a very large audience last aight, on the occasion of a concert promoted by the Dunedin Burns Club to celebrate tne anniversary of the birth of the national poet of Scotland, Robert Burns. The president of the club (Mr YV. B. M'EwanJ occupied tho chair, and seats on tlie platlorm were also taken by representatives of other Scottish societies in Dunedin. Among tile gentlemen supporting tho president were the Mayor of Dunedin (Mr J. J. Clark), Messrs T. K. Sidey, M.P., L>. M'Pnerson, A. Bathgate, J. Loudon, and W. Brown. The oohcert opened with tho singing by the audience, led. by the Burns Club Choir, of u verse of tho National Anthem The President, in a few remarks, welcomed the many visitors with them, a number of whom had come from other parts of New Zealand and a few from Australia, He also greeted the representatives of other Scottish societies in tho city, and voiced his pleasure at the presence of tho Mayor of Dunedin, who had been a member of the club for six or seven yoars. He was delighted to see in the audience a number of returnod soldiers, some of whom were members of tho club.—(Applause.) The roll of honour showed that between 60 and 70 of the club's young men had entered tho service of King and country.—(Applause.) Professor 11. D. Bedford, who was greeted with warm applause, gave tho principal speech of tho evening. His subject was " Burns as a Patriot," and in support of hi 6 theme he said: I fear I am the object of your compassion. I am of English extraction and can tho oar of an Englishman catch the finer harmonies of Burns ? I hasten to assure you that, although every drop of blood in me has run through English veins for centuries, I am only a small part English. My better half is a Scotch lassie, and my heart is in that half. I havo three wee bit bairns, every one of whom lias tho map of Scotland stamped upon its face. I havo breathed tho Scottish air of Otago most of my life.; and, lastly, I am a Kadical, whose enthusiasm for improving the lot of the poor was first kindled by a Scotchman, who dropped upon my lips tho live coal of this couplet: "Man's inhumanity to man Makes countless thousands mourn." Thus my environment has been more powerful than heredity, and I stand before you a Scotchman.—(Applause.) Anyhow, when God's own hand sent fresh from Himself a poot's soul into an Ayrshire ploughman, called Robert Burns, He intended a revelation of tho universal heart of mankind, which all races of men might read. The first immortal bard to sing in this world was Homer, and he sang of tho Olympian gods. Dante and Milton sang of man among tho gods and tho demons. Shakespeare and Burns sang of man on earth in all the passionate ardour of his joying and mourning, sinning and repenting life. The descent from thundering Jove to the toil-worn cotter, with 'lisping infant prattling on his knee, was the highest ascent of the poetic muse. Thank God for a genius who thought it no degradation to send the pulses of his own warm heart beating through tho world of common human hearts. I find the central chord of my life vibrant to this peerless Scotchman. "The rank is but the guinea stamp, The man's the gowd for a' that." ' The man whose throbbing soul fetched that out of his mind is fit to be monarch of the hearts of all plain people. And, as Abraham Lincoln said, ' God loved us common folk so much that he made a great heap of us.' Now, it is in the attitude of Burns to the plain man we have the keynote of his patriotism. Patriotism, in the narrower sense of the term as a hurrahing for King and country regardless of right or wrong, ho had little. The passion of his love for Scotland, which put a halo round every rugged feature of her landscape, sprang from his love of lier people and the epic struggle for freedom which constituted their history. " 0 Thou! who pour'd the patriotic tide, That stream'd thro' Wallace's undaunted heart, Who dared to nobly stem tyrannic pride, Or nobly die. ... 0, never, never Scotia's realm, desert." His love of his native soil bursts out in a prayer that ". . . howo'er crowns and coronets be rent, A virtuous populace may rise the while, And stand, a wall of fire, around their Much-lov'd isle." Had tho patriotism contained in the followng verso been understood in Germany, the German people would' not to-day have been destroying their own lives and homes to save a Kaiser's ambition: — "The wretch that wad' a tyrant own, and the wretch, his true-born brother, Who would set the mob tho tiixone, May they be damned together! Who will not sing 'God have the King' Shall hang as high's the steeple, But, while wo sing 'God tjavo tiie King,' We'll ne'er forget the people."—(Applause.) But the patriotism of Burns was not only a love for the whole people of his countryit was a love with no reverse o: hatred of the people oi other lands. Patriotism such as tnat which bids the German fignt tor a military despot, to the tune ot a hymn of hate, and by means of baby-killing, nurseslaying, and captive-cruciiying—such patriotism was as far irom Burns as the poles are asunder. —(Applause.) His love o. his own countrymen was only the intense expression of his love for all men. It was the partiality lor her own babe of a mother who would clasp any babe to her breast. "It's oomin' yet for a' that, That Man, to Man the world o'er Shall brothers bo lor a' that." As Longfellow says: "Tho burden of Burus's song is love of right, disdain of wrong, it's master chords are Manhood, Freedom, Brotherhood.'" The lact is, Burns required a good cause of liberty to awaken in him martial fervour. War to him was hateful, unless it was a crusade to relieve the oppressed. It oould not be otherwise to a soul sensitive as quicksilver to the sorrows and pains of men. tie could utter the lament ol war better than its glory: — "Mony a sweet ibabe, fatherless, And mony a widow mourning." But, whilst little of the clash of steel is to be heard in his poems, they abound in inspiration and comlort to those who have drawn sword for freedom. Hence their message for tho terrible days upon which wo have fallen. Burns lived in times of more or less constant war. He was born in the year in which Wolfe climbed tho heights of Abraham and added Canada as a jewel to the British Crown. He lived through the uprising of the j French peasants, known as the French Re- j volution, and poured the scorn of his verso upon Dumouricr, who deserted the people's cause. Besides living in years that were big with the 'struggles of mankind for the higher level and the extended horizon, ho was a devoted student of the history of his own countrymen. And, as his heart glowed at the deeds that won Scotland's freedom, his tonguo burst into stirring melody. See! as you think of Stirling and of Bannockburn, let the light of that memory merge in tho fiercer light of Anzao and Gaba Tope, and listen, ye descendents of the Scots "wha hao wi Wallace bled, Soots whom Bruce has often led" : —

"Who. will bo a traitor knave, Wha can fiil a coward's grave, Wha sac base as be a slave, Let him turn and flee. Lay the proud usurper low, Tyrants fall in every foe, Liberty's in every blow, Let us do—or die." Gould you have a better recruiting- song than that? I am an Englishman, but it makes my blood run like red lava through my veins.—(Applause.) I need not tell you to study Burns, but to those who are slack in the matter I would say you will find in him the most luminous expression for the sentiments of sorrow and pride awakened by the experiences of _ this war. Our first thought at the overflowing measure of apparently fruitless sacrifice at Gallipoli finds utterance in the lines:— "Now a' is done that_ men can do And a' is done in vain." But we go on to read Burns's toast on the anniversary of the battle of the Saints, and the despondency of our first thought is swallowed up in the exaltation of the second: — "Hero's to the memory of thoso we've lost! That we've lost, did I say? Nay, by Heaven that wo found. For their fame it will last while the world goes round." Mothers, are you torn with anxiety over your sons at the front, and want to ease your surcharged hearts—then hang this rosary about yofiV neck:— "Bullets, spare my only joy, Bullets, spare my darling boy, Fato, do with mo what you may, Sparo but him that's far away." If your loving heart ohills at the thought of tho snow-clad battlefields, let Burns express your yearning:— "0! Wort thou in the can Id blast On yonder lea, Mv plaidio to tho angry airt I'd shelter thee."

In the dirgo of Flodden Field, Burns spoaki for many a broken family circle to-day:—'. "Their winding pheet the blindy clay, Their craves are grown green to see. And by them lice tho dearest lad That ever blest a woman's ee'." And would you shake your indignant fist at tho cause—the German War Lord? "Now wae to tbee, thou cruel Lord, A bluidy man, I trow, thou be: For many a heart thou hast made stiir That ne'er did wrang to thine or thee." And when joy lights your eye on tho homecoming of the soldier, turn again to Bums: "For gold the menphant ploughs the main, Tho farmer ploughs tho manor; But glory is tho sodger's prize, Tho sodger'a wealth is honour. Tho brave, poor sodger ne'er despiso, Nor count him as a stranger, Remember he's his country's etay In day and hour of danger." —(Applause.) And if you think there is slackness in volunteering, hurl at the young men the words of Burns, as lie tells of ono who lost his limbs following Elliott in storm? , ing tho Spanish batteries at Gibraltar:— "Yet let my oountry need me, with ElKottV to head me, I'd clatter on my stumps at the sexmd of a drum." And, if in these_ critical times, when all our industrial, political, and civil energies ' should be unitod, you wish to express your'' indignation at tho party bickerings and the' selfish strivings:— "Oh, let us not like snarling curs, In wrangling be divided. Till slap! come in an unco' loon And wi' a ring decide it. Be Britain still to Britain trua Among ousels united; For never but by British hands Maun British wrongs be righted." And if you want to tell how Scotsmen and, Britons can fight:— v *: :i "But bring .a Scotsman frae his ML Clap in his cheek a Highland gill, x Say, such is Royal George's will, -A An there's the foe, He has nae thought but how to kill Twa. at a blow." And how to die:— Nae could faint-hearted doobtings tea*o' him; Death comee, w? fearless eye he sees him; Wi bluidy hand a welcome gie's him An' when he fa's His latest drought o' breathin' lea'es him • In faint huzzas." As these words ring in your ears think of the New Zealander who, returning ffom the historic landing at Gallipoli, riddled with >■ bullets, cheered with his last breath. Scot-' land—aye, the wholo British Empire—has; caught the spirit of Burns. No martial musio can stir like the trumpet tones of hia superbly endowed nature. Get the people reading the appropriate poems of Burn?,, and a refined, exalted, patriotism would seize therh, as fire the forest. Robert Burns himself walks through his verses environed by his own proper atmosphere of magnanimity, tenderness, and courage. Let us company him.— . w During the evening an excellent pro-" ; gramme of musio was contributed, the items'! being as under : —Selection, Dunedin Highland Pipe Band; part song ("Come, Rouse Up, Auld Scotland"), choir; song ("My n Love Is Like a Red, Red Rose "), TVliss Le Fevre; song ("To Mary In Heaven"), Mr W. Gemmell; song ("0 Whistle and I'll Como Tae Ye"), Miss Christie;: install mental quartet, Mr J. Flint's band; song (" There Was a Lad "), Mr W. H. Mao- ' kenzie; song ("Scots Wha Hae"), Mr A. Rawlinson; song ("Last May a Braw Wooer"), Miss Sparrow; part song ("0' a,' ; the Airts "), choir; song ("Ye Banks and. Braes"), Miss Densem; Highland fling,' Misa -' Frame; song ("Gae Bring Tao Me"), Mr. A. G. Green; instrumental quartet, Mr Flint's band; song (" Boon the Burn")," Miss Le Fevre; part song ("Star o' Robbie Burns"), choir. Misa E. Wright acted as accompanist and Mr J. Paterson as musical director. Oh the motion of the Mayor of ; Dunedin, a vote of thanks was accorded - Professor Bedford, the choir, and the other.-, contributors to the_ programme. ' The oonr ; cert was closed with the singing by the' audience of "Auld Lang Syne.'