Scottish poetry

“ There have been crofters, shepherds, farm laborers, tailors, weavers, and shoemakers, servant lassies and old wives, who have given expression to their feelings in verse and song, with more or less skill and success, and testified to the strength of the national genius which has made Scotland so peculiarly the land of song, and filled the lower bed of bracken and furze in which the higher and rarer flowers of Scottish minstrelsy have stood preeminent. ”

“ You must know your Scottish history, you must be filled with Scottish romance, above all, you must know your poetry and ballads, if you would rebuild and refill the country as you go. Not only over fair Melrose lies the moonlight of romance, making the ruin more lovely and more complete than the abbey could ever have been in its most established days, but over the entire land there lies the silver pall of moonlight, making, I doubt not, all things lovelier than in reality. ”

“ Indeed, it is remarkable that nearly all our Scottish poets have been national and descriptive. Scotland has produced no real epic, few powerful tragedies, few meditative poems of a high rank, but what a mass of poetry describing its own scenery and manners, and recording its own traditions. ”

“ Our song-writers, for a long time after, are unknown minstrels, who had no character to lose by making or singing profane songs,—they were of the people, and sang for them. So matters continued, until, at the commencement of the eighteenth century, Scottish songs began to be the rage both in England and Scotland, and an eager desire arose to gather up old snatches and preserve them. Henceforth Scotch poetry held up its head, and a few remarkable poets won their way into the hearts of large masses of the people. ”

“ The seventeenth century was a barren one for Scottish literature. The attraction of the larger English public and the disuse of the vernacular among the upper classes already discussed, drew to the South or to the Southern speech whatever literary talent appeared in the North, and it seemed for a time that, except for the obscure stream of folk poetry, Scottish vernacular literature was at an end. ”

“ Like beildless birdies, when they ca'
Frae wet, wee wing the batted snaw,-
and the pervading genuineness of a deep feeling, even if imperfectly expressed. There was the gloaming of a "waesome light" about his spirit, which shone through his uncertain gifts of utterance, although its power would not have been enough to have preserved his poetry in remembrance, except for two lyrics which reach the very highest level of Scottish song in their completeness and finish of construction, as well as in their simplicity and power. ”

“ His songs were for the most part in the vein of the current Scottish lyric poetry, and, although not without grace and felicity of expression, rarely above the limits of conventionality and imitation. The song by which he is most widely known, and which appears in all the collections of Scottish poetry, The Mitherless Bairn, owes its vogue to its simple pathos, appealing to the popular emotions rather than to its quality as poetry. ”

“ It is since Scottish writers have abandoned the search of a lost political history, have dropped their enthusiasm for a timid and turbulent ecclesiastical history, and have been content to depict the domestic annals of the people, to enter their shops and their houses, to follow them in the streets and the fields, and to record their everyday life—their eating and their drinking, their dress, their pleasures, their marriages, their wealth and their science—that Scottish history has become an enticing study. ”

“ Civilization is of the south and the Lowlands; but Scottish music and poetry, in their nascent, original, most forceful forms, are of the north and west. This is true, also, because among the most potent causes of difference are the aspects of nature, so strikingly in contrast as one nears England or Norway.
Scottish song and verse were born among the mountains nearer the North Star, and the first bards were hunters and cragsmen. In the early poetry and music of no land, more than in that of Scotland, are primitive art and pre-ancient nature more in accord. ”

“ Scottish Poetry. Scottish poetry comes late into notice, but it comes with a bound. The poverty and disunion of Scotland, its severance from the intellectual stimulus of English thought, and the dearth of educational facilities all combine to retard its literary development. But these disadvantages are rapidly passing away, with the beneficial results apparent in this chapter.
3. The Development of the Drama. The popularity of the romance is almost gone; the drama, more suited to [58] the growing intelligence of the time, is rapidly taking on a new importance. ”

“ A highly selective bibliography of works, through 1990, by and about Scottish poets. Entries are organized in eight divisions: background studies (including sections for dictionaries, bibliographies, general and social histories of Scotland, general background studies, histories of Scottish literature, studies of languages, general studies of Scottish poetry, general critical studies of Scottish literature) ; anthologies and magazines; early Scots poetry (to the mid-sixteenth century) ; Renaissance poets; ballads; eighteenth-century poets; nineteenth-century poets; and twentieth-century poets. ”

“ Thus whilst the generally spoken language of the two countries was essentially the same, the literature of England would be more purely Teutonic; that of Scotland would include Celtic elements; but these elements would assert themselves more in qualifying the style of the literature than in the use of Celtic words.
Thus, Scottish poetry generally shows a passionate love of Nature ”

“ Not ambitious of general learning, he confined his reading chiefly to poetry. His poems are much inferior to his songs; of the latter will be found admirers while the Scottish language is sung or understood. Abounding in genuine sweetness and graceful simplicity, they are pervaded by the gentlest pathos. ”

“ PREFACE
The public may depend on the following fragments as genuine remains of ancient Scottish poetry. The date of their composition cannot be exactly ascertained. Tradition, in the country where they were written, refers them to an æra of the most remote antiquity: and this tradition is supported by the spirit and strain of the poems themselves; which abound with those ideas, and paint those manners, that belong to the most early state of society. The diction too, in the original, is very obsolete ”

“ Amid such scenes the Scottish national character has been developed, and under their influence have naturally been created the exquisite poetry, the enchanting music, the noble art and architecture, and the austere civilisation of imperial Scotland. ”

“ From that period, still more conspicuously, dates the manifestation of Scottish intellect, in any degree compelling attention beyond Scottish limits, in the departments of literature and art. Before 1745, if we except the poet Thomson (for only recently have English literary historians reverted with any adequate interest to the older poetry and other literature of the real Scottish vernacular) , Scotland had not given birth to a single poet or other man of letters able to command distinct recognition by his English contemporaries. ”

“ These terms certainly indicate the leading features of Scottish music. There is something not only of wild sweetness, but touches of pathos even in its merriest measures. Though termed a new kind of music, however, it was not new. The king took up the key-note [Pg xxii] of the human heart—the primitive scale, or what has been defined the scale of nature, and produced some of those wild and plaintive strains which we now call Scottish melodies. His poetry was descriptive of, and adapted to the feelings, customs, and manners of his countrymen ”

“ Not so the Scots:—they are everywhere recommending the antiquity of their own country to public notice, vindicating its history, and setting off its poetry, and, by dint of constant attention to their grand national concern, have prevailed so far, as to have the broken jargon they speak to be considered as the most proper language for our pastoral poetry. Our most polite ladies affect to lisp out Scottish airs ”

“ Sufficiently imaginative, he does not, like his minstrel predecessor the Ettrick Shepherd, soar into the regions [Pg 48] of the supernatural, or roam among the scenes of the viewless world. He sings of the mountain wilds and picturesque valleys of Caledonia, and of the simple joys and habits of rural or pastoral life. His style is essentially lyrical, and his songs are altogether true to nature. Several of his songs, such as "Scotland Yet," "The Wild Glen sae Green," "The Land of Gallant Hearts," and "The Crook and Plaid," will find admirers while Scottish lyric poetry is read or sung. ”

“ He contributed greatly to improve the national music; and traces of his tender sentiment and elegant taste are said to exist in those witching airs, still piped among the wild mountains and lonely glens of Scotland. He has thus connected his image with whatever is most gracious and endearing in the national character; he has embalmed his memory in song, and floated his name to after-ages in the rich streams of Scottish melody. ”

“ Under the spell of that name imagination takes wing, and we are back in the springtime of youth. We hear the lark singing in the clear air. We smell the fragrance of the heather. We hear the plow-boy’s whistle, and the mild-maid’s song,—some lively ditty to relieve the tedium of labor, or it may be an old heroic melody, that glimpses some grand page of Scottish story. We hear again the murmur of voices that for long years have sunk into silence. ”

“ On a bleak day, there is but little beauty in such a glen; but when the sun is cloudless, and all the light serene, it is a place where poet or painter may see visions and dream dreams, of the very age of gold. At such seasons, there is a home-felt feeling of humble reality, blending with the emotions of imagination. In such places, the low-born high-souled poets of old breathed forth their songs, and hymns, and elegies—the undying lyrical poetry of the heart of Scotland. ”

“ The human heart loves the things of romance, and in the exercise of its native privilege, delights to feel. Scottish song has been written in harmony with nature, scenery, and circumstances; and fledged in its own melodies, which seem no less the outpouring of native sensibility, has borne itself onward from generation to generation. ”

“ Doubtless that capacity of genius, which enabled her to write as she has done, might, as an inherent stimulus, urge her to seek gratification in the exercise of it; but, even in this case, the virtue of her main motive underwent no diminution. She was well aware how deeply the Scottish heart imbibed the sentiments of song, so that these became a portion of its nature, or of the principles upon which the individuals acted, however unconsciously, amid the intercourse of life. ”

“ And his songs, sacred though most of them be, have a place in German song-books to this day.
Though Scottish songs seldom refer to a Divine Being, yet they are very far from being without their noble sentiments and inspirations. On the contrary, they have frequently sustained the moral life of a man. ”

“ I know not whether it be not peculiar to the Scots to have attained the liberal, without the manual arts, to have excelled in ornamental knowledge, and to have wanted not only the elegancies, but the conveniences of common life. Literature soon after its revival found its way to Scotland, and from the middle of the sixteenth century, almost to the middle of the seventeenth, the politer studies were very diligently pursued. The Latin poetry of Deliciæ Poëtarum Scotorum would have done honour to any nation, at least till the publication of May’s Supplement the English had very little to oppose. ”

“ Impulsive and impassioned naturally, his first strong attachment roused the deepest feelings of the man, and awoke the dormant passion of the poet. The non-success of his first wooing only made his song the more vehement for a while, but as no flame [Pg 184] can burn intensely for ever, his love became more subdued, and his song gradually assumed that touching pathos which has ever characterised the best lyrics of Scotland. ”

“ Tale-writers are told by critics to remember that the young shepherdesses of Scotland are not beautiful as the fictions of a poet's dream. But SHE was beautiful beyond poetry. She was so then, when passion and imagination were young—and her image, her undying, unfading image, is so now, when passion and imagination are old, and when from eye and soul have disappeared much of the beauty and glory both of nature and life. ”

“ Johnson to Sydney Smith. Dignity has been denied to it, and so has magnanimity, and so has humour; but there is no audience more quick than the Scottish audience to respond either to pathos or to mirth; there is no literature in the world so musically, tenderly, and weirdly poetical as the Scottish literature; there is no place on earth where the imaginative instinct of the national mind has resisted, as it has resisted in Scotland, the encroachment of utility upon the domain of romance ”

“ By his skill and education, he rendered his compositions more regular and palpable, than those songs and their airs which had been framed and sung by the sad-hearted swain on the hill, or the love-lorn maiden in the green wood.
Not in music only, but in the words of song, some of the Scottish kings had such a share as to stamp the art and practice of song-writing with royal sanction. Thus encouraged, the native minstrelsy was fostered by the whole community, receiving accessions from succeeding generations. ”