“Cauld blew the bitter-biting North
Upon thy early, humble birth;
Yet cheerfully thou glinted forth
Amid the storm,
Scarce rear’d above the parent earth
Thy tender form.

“The flaunting flow’rs our gardens yield,
High shelt’ring woods and wa’s maun shield;
But thou, beneath the random bield*
O’ clod or stane,
Adorns the histie stibble-field,**
Unseen, alane.

“There, in thy scanty mantle cauld,
Thy snawie bosom sunward spread,
Thou lifts thy unassuming head
In humble guise;
But now the share uptears thy bed,
And low thou lies!”

Shelter.
*Bare stubble field.

Burns wrote love songs too, for he was constantly in love—­often to his discredit, and at length he married Jean Armour, Scots fashion, by writing a paper saying that they were man and wife and giving it to her.  This was enough in those days to make a marriage.  But Burns had no money; the brothers’ farm had not prospered, and Jean’s father, a stern old Scotsman, would have nothing to say to Robert, who was in his opinion a bad man, and a wild, unstable, penniless rimester.  He made his daughter burn her “lines,” thus in his idea putting an end to the marriage.

Robert at this was both hurt and angry, and made up his mind to leave Scotland for ever and never see his wife and children more.  He got a post as overseer on an estate in Jamaica, but money to pay for his passage he had none.  In order to get money some friends proposed that he should publish his poems.  This he did, and the book was such a success that instead of going to Jamaica as an unknown exile Burns went to Edinburgh to be entertained, feted, and flattered by the greatest men of the day.

All the fine ladies and gentlemen were eager to see the plowman poet.  The fuss they made over him was enough to turn the head of a lesser man.  But in spite of all the flattery, Burns, though pleased and glad, remained as simple as before.  He moved among the grand people in their silks and velvets clad in homespun clothes “like a farmer dressed in his best to dine with the laird"* as easily as he had moved among his humble friends.  He held himself with that proud independence which later made him write—­

Scott.

    “Is there for honest poverty
        That hangs his head, and a’ that? 
    The coward slave, we pass him by,
        We dare to be poor for a’ that! 
    For a’ that, and a’ that,
        Our toils obscure, and a’ that,
    The rank is but the guinea stamp,
        The man’s the gowd for a’ that.

    “What though on hamely fare we dine,
        Wear hodden grey, and a’ that;
    Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine,
        A man’s a man for a’ that: 
    For a’ that and a’ that,
        Their tinsel show, and a’ that;
    The honest man, though e’er sae poor,
        Is king o’ men for a’ that.”