Today is the 250th birthday of Robert Burns, that great Scots poet. Och, we’d love to claim him as a Unitarian, but he never joined a Unitarian chapel. So we claim him as one of our spiritual ancestors: an anti-Calvinist and religious liberal not unlike some of our New England Arminians, except more anti-clerical, and a better poet. Some of Burns’s burlesques on religion are brilliantly observed, and beneath the scathing satire is a true sympathy for the common people. (I think he might have gotten along with proto-Unitarian Ebenezer Gay of Massachusetts.)

On Burns’s birthday, one is supposed to attend Burns supper. I didn’t do that: I went to a Portuguese feast instead (after all, I live in New Bedford). But the drop of Scots blood in me calls on me to include three of his poems, which you’ll find below: first, a grace to be said before meals; second, the complete poem “Auld Lang Syne”; and finally a longer poem which I would describe as a non-Calvinist religiously liberal poem on morality. Read ’em aloud, and think of Robbie Burns on this, his 250th birthday.

I’ve included glosses on some of the more obscure words from Scots dialect; the definitions in standard English are in square brackets at the end of the lines of poetry, and the Scottish words are marked by a caret (^).

Some hae meat and canna eat,
And some wad eat that want it;
But we hae meat, and we can eat,
Sae let the Lord be thankit.

Auld Lang Syne (1788)

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And auld lang syne^! [long since, long ago]

Chorus. — For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne.
We’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.

And surely ye’ll be your pint stowp^! [you’ll pay for your pint]
And surely I’ll be mine!
And we’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.
For auld, &c.

We twa hae run about the braes^, [slopes of the hills]
And pou’d the gowans^ fine; [wild, or mountain, daisies]
But we’ve wander’d mony a weary fit^, [foot]
Sin’ auld lang syne.
For auld, &c.

We twa hae paidl’d in the burn,
Frae morning sun till dine;
But seas between us braid hae roar’d
Sin’ auld lang syne.
For auld, &c.

And there’s a hand, my trusty fere!
And gie’s a hand o’ thine!
And we’ll tak a right gude-willie waught^, [good-will draft, drink]
For auld lang syne.
For auld, &c.

Address To The Unco Guid, Or The Rigidly Righteous (1786)

My Son, these maxims make a rule,
An’ lump them aye thegither;
The Rigid Righteous is a fool,
The Rigid Wise anither:
The cleanest corn that ere was dight
May hae some pyles o’ caff in;
So ne’er a fellow-creature slight
For random fits o’ daffin.
(Solomon. — Eccles. ch. vii. verse 16.)

O ye wha are sae guid yoursel’,
Sae pious and sae holy,
Ye’ve nought to do but mark and tell
Your neibours’ fauts and folly!
Whase life is like a weel-gaun^ mill, [well-going]
Supplied wi’ store o’ water;
The heaped happer’s^ ebbing still, [hopper, of a mill]
An’ still the clap plays clatter^. [noise, babble]

Hear me, ye venerable core,
As counsel for poor mortals
That frequent pass douce^ Wisdom’s door [sedate, sober, prudent]
For glaikit^ Folly’s portals: [foolish, thoughtless]
I, for their thoughtless, careless sakes,
Would here propone defences —
Their donsie^ tricks, their black mistakes, [vicious, bad-tempered]
Their failings and mischances.

Ye see your state wi’ theirs compared,
And shudder at the niffer^; [exchange]
But cast a moment’s fair regard,
What maks the mighty differ;
Discount what scant occasion gave,
That purity ye pride in;
And (what’s aft mair than a’ the lave),
Your better art o’ hidin.

Think, when your castigated pulse
Gies now and then a wallop!
What ragings must his veins convulse,
That still eternal gallop!
Wi’ wind and tide fair i’ your tail,
Right on ye scud your sea-way;
But in the teeth o’ baith^ to sail, [both]
It maks a unco lee-way.

See Social Life and Glee sit down,
All joyous and unthinking,
Till, quite transmugrified, they’re grown
Debauchery and Drinking:
O would they stay to calculate
Th’ eternal consequences;
Or your more dreaded hell to state,
Damnation of expenses!

Ye high, exalted, virtuous dames,
Tied up in godly laces,
Before ye gie poor Frailty names,
Suppose a change o’ cases;
A dear-lov’d lad, convenience snug,
A treach’rous inclination —
But let me whisper i’ your lug,
Ye’re aiblins^ nae temptation. [perhaps]

Then gently scan your brother man,
Still gentler sister woman;
Tho’ they may gang a kennin^ wrang, [a very little]
To step aside is human:
One point must still be greatly dark,–
The moving Why they do it;
And just as lamely can ye mark,
How far perhaps they rue it.

Who made the heart, ’tis He alone
Decidedly can try us;
He knows each chord, its various tone,
Each spring, its various bias:
Then at the balance let’s be mute,
We never can adjust it;
What’s done we partly may compute,
But know not what’s resisted.