Robert Burns' letters to appear online

by mudricky | December 30, 2008 at 05:38 am

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Fans of Scotland's most famous poet Robert Burns will have the chance to view some of his letters online.

In 2009 there will be events all over Scotland to celebrate the 250th anniversary of Robert Burns' birth.

The events are called Homecoming Scotland, designed to attract people of Scottish ancestry to visit Scotland.

The campaign, organised by VisitScotland and the Scottish Government, claims that "for every single Scot in their native land, there are thought to be at least five more overseas who can claim Scottish ancestry."

The National Trust for Scotland (NTS), a conservation charity, organised the website and will publish the letters online, on the dates they were originally written.

The letters will be posted until a new Burns Birthplace Museum opens in July 2010. The museum cost £21m to create.

NTS chairman, Shonaig Macpherson, said: "In the period from 1787 to 1789 we see many sides of Burns in his letters.

"The great love poet can seem cold in his correspondence with friend Robert Ainslie, but he is then flowery in his love letters to Mrs Agnes McLehose - codename 'Clarinda' - while a more factual and reflective side is seen in other letters.

"One of the aims of the new museum is to show every side to Burns and these letters are an early way of people seeing how complex a character he truly was."

You can see the website at www.burnsletters.wordpress.com .

More than 90 letters written by Robert Burns are to be published online in the run up to the opening of a £21m museum celebrating the poet's life and work.

I will look them up, once they appear on line.

They already are online at www.burnsletters.wordpress.com and have entries for November and December already up.

Robert Burns also appears to be on Twitter with daily updates at www.twitter.com/ayrshirebard

The Mouse
Wee, sleekit, cowrin, tim'rous beastie,
O, what a panic's in thy breastie!
Thou need na start awa sae hasty,
Wi' bickering brattle!

Listen to this in Real Audio

To A Mouse (continued)

On turning her up in her nest, with the plough, November, 1785

I wad be laith to rin an' chase thee,
Wi' murd'ring pattle!

I'm truly sorry Man's dominion
Has broken Nature's social union,
An' justifies that ill opinion,
Which makes thee startle,
At me, thy poor, earth-born companion,
An' fellow-mortal!

I doubt na, whyles, but thou may thieve;
What then? poor beastie, thou maun live!
A daimen-icker in a thrave 'S a sma' request:
I'll get a blessin wi' the lave,
An' never miss't!

Thy wee-bit housie, too, in ruin!
It's silly wa's the win's are strewin!
An' naething, now, to big a new ane,
O' foggage green!
An' bleak December's winds ensuin,
Baith snell an' keen!

Thou saw the fields laid bare an' wast,
An' weary Winter
comin fast,
An' cozie here, beneath the blast,
Thou thought to dwell,
Till crash! the cruel coulter past
Out thro' thy cell.

That wee-bit heap o' leaves an' stibble,
Has cost thee monie a weary nibble!
Now thou's turn'd out, for a' thy trouble,
But house or hald.
To thole the Winter's sleety dribble,
An' cranreuch cauld!

But Mousie, thou are no thy-lane,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men,
Gang aft agley,
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,
For promis'd joy!

Still, thou art blest, compar'd wi' me!
The present only toucheth thee:
But Och! I backward cast my e'e,
On prospects drear!
An' forward, tho' I canna see,
I guess an' fear!

http://www.electricscotland.com/burns/mouse.html