Poem in honour of Robert Burns, Montreal, 1911

Montreal Daily Star, 26 January 1911, page 8

 

The Poet’s Corner

 

The Birthday of Robert Burns

(January 25^th 1759)

 

Sweet in the ear of fame of yore a bard

With lips a lover’s wooed the heart of time;

To him his love was meet reward,

Ere fame awoke to fine his song sublime;

Within his heart the sheen of nature glowed;

A patriot’s fire his noble sour endowed,

And heart and soul found ecstasy in rhyme,

That stirred the heart of time and soul of fame

To garland with the loves of men the poet’s name.

 

Twas where the landscape sighs when Bonnie Doon

Sings mournfully as winter stays its glee,

The cottar’s heart, in loght of Januar’s moon,

First heart the voice disguised of heaven’s decree

A Scottish poet born.  The north wind blew

A Hansel-blast, but none the omen knew

Though drear the willows soughed across the lea

And every somber pine and bearded oak

Sustained the solemn birthday hymn till day awoke.

 

AndScotia’s sons with patriotic cheer

Join festival to celebrate his birth

The spirit of his song still hovers near

To lustre friendship and its well-timed mirth:

His song was nature’s incense of the heart

With nought to hide because it knew no art-

The song of life as life is found on earth-

Sweetpess is sorrow, evil in the good

The only song man sings and yet has understood.

 

How oft his minstreisy entints our joys:

How oft his genius lindeth friends sincere:

If life and joy we know be but alloys,

‘Tis these his love and poesy endear:

Hail for the land whose poet-son he was:

Hail to the land that fought in freedom’s cause

Hail to its love as brethren let us seek

The virtue void of art, the patriot’s pride that’s meek

JM Harper

Quebec.

 

Killing the Haggis: Burns Nicht Supper, Montreal, 2011

 

Here is Jeff McCarthy Addressing/ killing the Haggis at the Annual St Andrew’s Society Burns Nicht Supper in Montreal.  Photo presented by request.

Burns Nicht Quiz, St Andrew’s Society of Montreal, 2011

Here is the Burns Quiz given at the Burns Nicht Supper, 28th January 2011 at the University Club, Montreal.  The winner was Brian Mackenzie, Heather McNabb and Jeff McCarthy.  Congrats!

Burns Quiz

1) Every year at Halloween Montreal’s Caledonian society honoured Robert Burns.  Name their favourite speaker who the invited every year, until his death in 1868?

Thomas D’Arcy McGee

2)  What is Burns’ birth date?

January 25, 1759

3)  Where is the statue to Robert Burns in Montreal located?

Place du Canada/ Dominion Square

4) In 2009 who was named the Greatest Scot by the Scottish public?

Robert Burns

5)  Who was Burns married to?

Jean Armour

6) Did Burns know any secret handshakes?

Yes, mason since 1781 at Tarbolton

7) With whom did he have his first child?

Elizabeth Paton, his mother’s servant- in 1785  named Elizabeth Paton Burns

8 )What was Highland Mary’s real name

Mary Campbell

9) When were Burns’ poems first published?

31 July 1786

10)Who said about Burns- “ I never saw such another eye in a human head, though I have seen the most distinguished men of my time.” ?

Walter Scott

11) Where was Robert Burns buried?

St Michael’s Churchyard, Dumfries

12) What did Burns do for a living in Dumfries?

Excise man

13) Besides Scotland, what other country adopted Burns as the “people’s poet” ?

Russia

14) Where was the first Burns club founded in 1801

Greenock