Nor is Clarinda's[107] love-poet, Sylvander, the
real Burns either. But he tells us himself: "These English songs gravel
me to death. I have not the command of the language that I have of my
native tongue. In fact, I think that my ideas are more barren in English
than in Scotch. I have been at _Duncan Gray_ to dress it in English, but
all I can do is desperately stupid."[108] We English turn naturally, in
Burns, to the poems in our own language, because we can read them
easily; but in those poems we have not the real Burns.
The real Burns is of course in his Scotch poems. Let us boldly say that
of much of this poetry, a poetry dealing perpetually with Scotch drink,
Scotch religion, and Scotch manners, a Scotchman's estimate is apt to be
personal. A Scotchman is used to this world of Scotch drink, Scotch
religion, and Scotch manners; he has a tenderness for it; he meets its
poet half way. In this tender mood he reads pieces like the _Holy Fair
or Halloween_. But this world of Scotch drink, Scotch religion, and
Scotch manners is against a poet, not for him, when it is not a partial
countryman who reads him; for in itself it is not a beautiful world, and
no one can deny that it is of advantage to a poet to deal with a
beautiful world.
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