THE LOVE-SONGS OF BURNS.

Pelorus Guardian and Miners' Advocate., Volume 17, Issue 61, 4 August 1903, Page 7

THE LOVE-SONGS OF BURNS.

Burns was preeminently a ton of the soil—a earelew, happy child of nature. Bom just 140 years ago last Jan nary, in Ayrshire, the bod of a farmer, Burns bad for his earliest companions the uncouth children of the sim pie country-folk. The tsles and songs of the locality aroused the latent seeds of poetry in the young man's fancy, which hurst into full flower under the genial warmth of his tare for a "bonnie, sweet, sonsie lassie." Spontaneous as all bis songs and poems seem, theie was a cause behind them all, Some sentiment, some iueideot, held his attention, filtered through his poetic mind, and blossomed into a delicate bit of terse. Bis lore for Mary Campbell was the inspiiationof the song "Highland Mary." She was a Bervaat in the family of. a gentleman living in Maachline. She possessed unusual mental gifts, and had a sweet disposition. Burns had a sincere affection for her, and when ahe was compolledto leaveior the West Highlands, the parting was most tender, . . Cunningham tellß us that "the lovers stood on each side of a small, purling brook. They laved their hands id its limpid stream, and holding a Bible between them, pronounced their tows to be faithful to each other." But before Burns eonld see his Highland Mary *€"<> ahe had died of the fever,