THE BURNS ANNIVERSARY.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20004, 22 January 1927, Page 4

THE BURNS ANNIVERSARY.

Tune but the impression stronger makes As streams their channels deeper wear. It is well that we should mark the natal day of Robert Burns but we need not fear for his memory. “The bonuie lark,” “the wild whistling blackbird,” and “the mellow Mavis” sing it, and it inspires the lover of Nature, the patriot, and the lover of humanity. The homage paid to his genius goes on increasing, the circle of his admirers ever widening, and his poems and songs thrill, with increasing force, the electric chain of humanity that binds us all. Great is the power of the patriotic bard j his work lives in the hearts of the people. Burns’s patriotism and passionate love of his native land have done much for Scotland. He stirred long forgotten emotions and fanned into a flame the smouldering embers of the national spirit and men remembered their fathers and gloried in the Scottish name. Love of country, pride of race, has been a great driving force in all lands. It has been specially so in Scotland. She owes much to her patriotic song writers. Ever since the days of Blind Harry, the minstrel who chronciled the great deeds of Wallace, their notes have been heard all over the old heather-clad land, and there is not a hill, glen, loch or stream but reechoes in song, all her romantic history. Her gallant and successful struggles for civil and religious liberty are chronicled in never dying lays. The work of the historians is read by the lire, but patriotic eongs live in the hearts of the people. There were sweet singers in Scotland before Burns’s time, and since that, but he is the Master Singer. What a lustre he has shed on his native land. Millions who have never seen it have their kindest thoughts of it as the “land of Burns.” He is specially dear to men and women of Scottish blood, but he is a world poet. No other is held so close to the heart of humanity, he has enobled true manhood and glorified womanhood and women may well keep his memory green. None, have sung so sweetly of them or with more sympathy. Ho has made animate and inanimate Nature symbolic in their praise. He was in keen sympathy with Nature and its harmonies. Nature seemed to be ever near him. ever speaking to him.

‘ O Nature, a’ thy shows and forms, To feeling pensive hearts hae charms, Whither the summer kindly warms, Wi life and light. Or winter howls in gusty storms, The lang dark nmht.” And there is not a singing bird or blooming wild flower but he has embalmed in songs that will never die. His love and sympathy are shown in many of his poems, and we need not wonder that on the anniversary of nis birth—

“In lonely hut and lordly hall a mighty voice is heard. And ’neath its wild bewitching spell the honest brows are bared.’’

A leading trait shown through Burns’s writings is love of country. It is pleasing to note that this is conspicuous in New Zealanders. There need be no fears of a country where true patriotism is cherished, for this does not tend to a narrow range of sympathies. We believe New Zealanders have a true love for their own beautiful country, their “Land of the mountain and the flood,” and that they will not forget the old land of their fathers and mothers, its literature, its great traditions, and all its hallowed memories, nor despise their heritage as citizens of the great British Empire. It is worth nothing that New Zealanders take a leading part in the celebration of the Burns anniversary. Among the orators on past occasions in Dunedin have been Mr J. C. Thomson late M.P. for Wallace, the Rev. Ernest Graham Guthrie, Sir John Findlay, and Sir Charles Statham. This year Mr W. R. Brugh will fill the post of honour.