ROBERT BURNS’ LAST POEM

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXI, Issue 19033, 10 June 1924, Page 12

ROBERT BURNS’ LAST POEM

DISCOVERED IN NEW ZEALAND. When on a visit recently to New Zealand, Mr William Smith, Westerhouse, Carluke, secured (the Peebleshire Advertiser says) from an old Scotsman living near Dunedin, a copy of a poem written by Robert Burns very shortly before his death, and addressed to Miss Jessie Lewars. One does not readily accept as authentic anything fresh, at this date, purporting to come from Burns’ pen. This poem, however, written as it was in such pathetic circumstances, gives evidences of being genuine, let alone the fact that it bears his signature. The verses will be admitted to be of great merit, almost every line speaking of the tragedy of his last days. They have an added interest for all lovers of the poet from the fact that it is almost a certainty that they were the last verses he composed, and that only five days before his death. They are worthy of Burns at his best, and not unfit to be classed along with 1 ‘ The Cottar’s Saturday Night.” TO MISS JESSIE LEWARS. The sun lies clasped in amber cloud, Half hidden in the sea, And o’er the sands the flowing tide Comes racing merrilie. The hawthorn hedge is white with bloom The wind is soft and lown, And sad and still you watch by me, Your hand clasped in my own. Oh, let the curtains bide, Jessie, And lift my head a wee, And let the bonnie setting sun, Glint in on you and me. The world seems fair and bright, Jessie, Near loving hearts like you, But poortith’s blast sifts simmer love, And makes leal friendships few. How aften in the dreary night, I clasp my burning hands Upon those throbbing, sleepless lids, O’er eyes like glowing brands, And wonder in my weary brain, If haply when I am dead My old boon friends for love of me Will give my bairnies bread.

Oh, did the poor not help the poor, Each in their simple way, With humble gift and kindly love, God pity them, I say. For many a man who clasped my hand With friendship o’er the bowl, When the wine halo passed away Proved but a niggard soul.

Oh, blessed hope ’midst our distress, There is a promise made, That in the day the rough wind blows, The east wind shall be stayed. A few short years and those I love, Will come again to me, To that bright land without a sun, That land without a sea.

Oh, wilt thou gang o’ nights, Jessie, To my forsaken hearth, And be as thou hast been to me, The truest friend on earth. So sweetly in your linnet voice, You’ll sing my weans to rest, While Jeannie leans her weary head Upon thy loving breast.

Oh, what is fame? Its wealth of lava Cools not the fevered brow, Wilt tell his name in future days Who whistled at the plough, And wrote a simple song or two, For happier hearts to sing Among the shining sheaves of corn, Or round the household ring.

Yet would I praise the bubble fame, ■ If but my artless lays Brought thy true worth and lovingness For future time to praise True friend, I bless the poet skill, Which won a friend like thee, Whose love twixt hopes of home and heaven Is with me constantly. Robert Burns. Miss Lewars, to whom the poem was addressed, was the sister of John Lewars, one of the bard’s fellow officers in the Excise, a young man of whom he spoke in high praise. Miss Lewars was a neighbour in Dumfries, and a kind and helpful friend to Mrs Burns and her children and helped to nurse the poet in his last illness. Mr A. Stewart, of Lanark, who contributed to the Pebbleshire Advertiser notes on this p®em, discusses the question, How such a meritorious piece has not been published in any of the numerous collections of Burn’ works? We learn (he says) that Jessie Lewars married in Dumfries, becoming a Mrs Thompson, and continued to reside there even after she became a widow, but it would appear that although she gave the others verses he had written to her to the publishers she had never given up this, the most important of them all. One can only conjecture as to her reason. It is possible and not unlikely that she considered this last tribute from her departed friend too personal and sacred a message to give to the world, and so kept it as one of her treasured memorials. Or perchance her finer feelings revolted against publishing the tender expressions used regarding those he was leaving. Whatever may have been her reason for holding the poem as confidential, she certainly kept her treasure to the end. It would be interesting to know how the poem was carried to New Zealand. Here again we can only, in the meantime at least, surmise that after Mrs Thomson’s death the relative into whose hands it fell either took it abroad or sent it to some other friend, who carefully preserved it, and so it passed from one to another until at last it has returned to Scotland to arouse fresh interest in her National Bard.