Here are two Immortal Memory addresses - a general, biographical, Immortal Memory address that I wrote , and Angela Luciani's fine Inuvik Immortal Memory, written more from a women's perspective.

My good friends, now that you've had your share of haggis - but not your fill of whisky, poetry, and blether - we can get on with the merry business of the evening. It's wonderful to see you here tonight, 240 years after the birth of Robert Burns, to pay homage to the Bard's memory, and to celebrate his art and spirit. Thank you for your company. I'm sure that Burns himself would enjoy the good fellowship and jolly spirits at this supper tonight.

It was a pleasure to write the address for this occasion; to dwell for a while in the land of Burns; to ruminate on the art of Scotland's Bard and greatest poet - one of history's greatest poets - a man whose work has been translated into more languages then that of any other poet, save Shakespeare and the Bible, and whose work, like theirs, has become so deeply imbedded in the human vernacular.

Through Burns's poetry we share a universal, and personal, experience. Doesn't it feel good to sing Auld Lang Syne among a group of friends? To share the warm feelings and sentiment of that wonderful song? I'm always amazed by To a Mouse; the philosophical juxtaposition between man and animal that Burns describes, and the eloquent expression "The best laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft a-gley."

In For A' That, Burns, the son of the Enlightenment, and leveler of social class tells us "The rank is but the guinea stamp, the man's the gowd for a' that." In To a Louse Burns bursts the bubble of social and religious pretense

O wad some Power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!
It wad frae monie a blunder free us
An foolish notion:
What airs in dress an gait wad lea'es us,
An ev'n devotion!

In Holy Willie's Prayer, as in Address to the Unco Guid, or the Rigidly Righteous, Burns is the satirist, exposing pious self-righteousness and hypocrisy: "O ye wha are sae guid yoursel, sae pious and sae holy, ye've nought to do but mark and tell your Neebour's fauts and folly!"

And of course, Burns was the great Romantic poet and songwriter:

A Red, Red Rose

O, my luve's like a red, red rose,
That's newly sprung in June:
My luve's like a melodie,
That's sweetly play'd in tune.

So fair thou art, my bonie lass,
So deep in love am I:
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a' the seas gang dry.

Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi' the sun:
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
While the sands of life shall run.

And fare thee weel, my only luve,
And fare thee weel awhile!
And I will come again, my luve.
Tho' it were ten thousand mile.

So simply, and eloquently, did Burns express his feelings that they have become part of our internal dialog. Without thinking, we often use his words to express our thoughts. How often, while reading the morning paper, have we pondered "man's inhumanity to man," or resigned ourselves to the truth that "nae man can tether time or tide," or steeled ourselves with the resolve to "do or die"? Bartlett's Familiar Quotations would be a much poorer volume, without the contributions of Robert Burns.

Lord Byron, speaking from the vantage point of the generation following Burns, best described the emotional breadth of the Bard's work with his famous quote:

"What an antithetical mind! -- tenderness, roughness --
delicacy, coarseness -- sentiment, sensuality -- soaring
and groveling, dirt and deity -- all mixed up in that
compound of inspired clay!"

Robert was the eldest of four children. Born in a clay cottage in Ayrshire, into the harsh, marginal life of the tenant farmer. His family's constant struggle to make a living in the rural farming society of the Scottish Lowlands, would color Burns' experience and his art. He was raised amidst the folk culture of the Lowland countryside. The songs and stories he heard were spoken in Scottish - a language closer to Old-English than to modern English - and which by the eighteenth century had become only the language of the poor Lowland Scots. Burns would take the language and beliefs of this peasant society and use it, along with English, to create one of the greatest flowerings of poetic expression in any language.

William and Agnes Burnes toiled hard to raise and educate their boys, Robert and Gilbert. William took a position as the overseer and daily gardener at a nearby estate, while the young Burns boys added hours of study, in John Murdoch's school, to their hours of toil in the fields. Robert worked on the family farm alongside his mother. As Agnes worked in the fields or in the cottage, she told Robert old stories and sang him old songs. A friend of his mother, Betty Davidson, was also an important influence. He would later claim that his "latent seeds of Poesy" were cultivated by Davidson's large collection of

"tales and songs concerning devils, ghosts, fairies,
brownies, witches, warlocks, spunkies, kelpies, elf-candles,
dead-lights, wraiths, apparitions, cantraips, giants,
enchanted towers, dragons and other trumpery"

His education from these two women - his mother and Betty Davidson - taught him to appreciate the traditions of the Scottish countryside.

Women were always an inspiration to Burns. Young Nellie Kirkpatrick, the Blacksmith's daughter, inspired Burns' first song. Fifteen rear old Robert was smitten with her while they were helping with the harvest on his father's farm. In an effort to win Nell's affections from a rival, Rabbie memorized her favorite tune and wrote a lyric to it that he called Handsome Nell:

O, once I lov'd a bonie lass
An' aye I love her still
An' whilst that virtue warms my breast,
I'll love my handsome Nell

...
She dresses aye sae clean and neat,
Baith decent and genteel;
And then there's something in her gait
Gars ony dress look weel

Often uprooted by financial failure and landlord disputes, the Burns family moved from farm to farm; from Alloway, to Mt. Oliphant, to Lochlea. By sixteen Robert was the principal laborer on the farm. Despite the frequent upheavals, Rabbie managed to keep his ear to his Muse, though his hands remained on the plough. He devoured the works of the novelists of his day, particularly Mackenzie and Sterne, and was greatly influenced by two poets: Robert Fergusson, the Edinburgh poet whom Burns described as "by far my elder brother in the muse," and whose use of English, Scots, and rural Scottish subject matter is reflected in Burns's own work. And Allan Ramsey, whose comprehensive anthology of Scottish songs, The Tea-Table Miscellany, enjoyed great success throughout Britain in Burns's day. Describing another beloved song anthology of his youth, Burns said:

"The Collection of Songs was my vade mecum, I
pored over them, driving my cart or walking to labour,
song by song, verse by verse; carefully noting the true
tender or sublime from affectation and fustian. I am
convinced I owe much to this for my critic craft such as
it is."

Lassies, literature, and song, always played an important role in Burns' life. A friend, and member of Burns's youthful "Tarbolton Bachelors' Club" (a friendly club formed by Robert, and Gilbert, when Burns was 21, recalled:

"...we often took a walk in the fields; in these walks
I have frequently been struck by his facility in addressing
the fair sex, and it was generally a death-blow to our
conversation, however agreeable, to meet a female
acquaintance. Some book he always carried and read
when not otherwise employed. It was likewise his custom
to read at table."

By this point, Burns had been involved in various local affairs, and was no stranger to the emotional highs and lows of the great game. His father, William, died in 1784 and the ensuing period was, in many ways, one of the lowest and most difficult in Robert's life. It was a time of harsh stress, dejection, and eventually... great, artistic success. For two years he struggled, with Gilbert, to make a success of a farm they had rented together in Mauchline. At the same time, Robert had become involved in several affairs that would greatly effect his life and work: With Elizabeth Patton, who bore him a daughter in 1785; with Mary Campbell (the inspiration for Highland Mary); and with Jean Armour - his "bonnie Jean" - with whom he would have a lifelong relationship, eventually marry, and have eight children with.

During this time - while carrying Robert's twins - the Armour family rejected Burns' proposal of marriage to Jean. This repudiation, coupled with the dismal failure of the Mauchline farm, convinced Robert to cash in his chips and emigrate to the New World. Is it surprising, that during this emotionally turbulent time, Burns immersed himself in his poetry, and composed many of the major works that comprised his first volume? He booked passage to Jamaica and raised a subscription for a volume of his poetry, to finance his voyage. When the Kilmarnock edition, Poems: Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect was published in July of 1786, it was an immediate success.

I suppose you could say that "the rest is history," (but, to try your patience and increase your thirsts, I won't). Encouraged by his success, Burns traveled to Edinburgh to arrange for a new, larger edition of his poems. The "ploughman poet" became the toast of Edinburgh society. It was an important time in Burns' life. He saw a new world, started new love affairs - most notably with Agnes M'Lehose, his "Clarinda" - and formed lasting friendships among the Edinburgh literati that gave him intellectual, if not financial, support for the rest of his too-short life. He made tours of the Borders and Highlands, was invited into the grandest estates and the most humble crofts. The impressions he made on the high and low, were cherished and recorded for posterity by those he touched. He was a man of heaven and Earth; a literary lion; a poet of both the Age of Enlightenment, and the Romantic movement. And he wrote in the language of the Scottish countryside. He became a legend.

Burns's good friend, Maria Riddell, wrote of Burns in her memoirs thus:

"... None certainly ever outshone Burns in the charms - the
sorcery I would almost call it, of fascinating conversation,
the spontaneous eloquence of social argument, or the
unstudied poignancy of brilliant repartee; nor was any man,
I believe, ever gifted with a larger portion of the,
'vivida vis animi.'

"...Such was the irresistible power of attraction that encircled
him, though his appearance and manner were always
peculiar, he never failed to delight and excel. His figure
seemed to bear testimony to his earlier destination and
employments. It seemed rather moulded by nature for the
rough exercises of Agriculture, than the gentler cultivation of
the Belles Lettres. His features were stamped with the hardy
character of independence, and the firmness of conscious,
though not arrogant, pre-eminance; the animated
expressions of countenance were almost peculiar to himself;
the rapid lightnings of his eye were always the harbingers of
some flash of genius, whether they darted the fiery glances
of insulted and indignant superiority, or beamed with
impassioned sentiment of fervid and impetuous affections.
His voice alone could improve upon the magic of his eye:
sonorous, replete with the finest modulations, it alternatively
captivated the ear with the melody of poetic numbers, the
perspicuity of nervous reasoning, or the ardent sallies of
enthusiastic patriotism...

"The penchant burns had uniformly acknowledged for the
festive pleasures of the table, and toward the fairer and
softer objects of nature's creation, has been the rallying
point from whence the attacks of his censors have been
uniformly directed;and to these, it must be confessed, he
shewed himself no stoic."

In fact, Burns never made the sort of money that would allow him to pursue his muse at leisure. (He sold the copyright of the hugely successful Edinburgh edition and gave much of it to Gilbert to help with the farm.) Nor did he ever receive the type of solid, artistic patronage, that he so earnestly sought. Instead, he was offered new farmland to till - Ellisland, on the banks of the Nith.

There, Burns continued to write his poetry, and devoted himself to what he really considered his most important artistic work: the collection, recording, and composition of Scottish folk songs. In collaboration with his good friend James Johnson, Burns was the chief researcher and contributor to The Scots Musical Museum. This collection is the repository of many of Burns' finest songs, including Ca' The Yowes, Ae Fond Kiss, The Banks O' Doon, Afton Water, A Red Red Rose, Auld Lang Syne and, that cheiftain of drinking songs, Willie Brew'd A Peck O' Maut. Eventually running to six volumes (the last two being published after his death) it is regarded as the finest collection of Scottish song ever assembled.

For his own amusement, and that of his friends in the Crochallan Fencibles - his Edinburgh literary club - Burns collected, and wrote, much of a volume of bawdy songs, called The Merry Muses of Caledonia.Burns also worked with other scholars and collectors, but without the success he enjoyed with Johnson. He was often frustrated by his collaborators' attempts to clean up the earthy songs he loved, and so planned to publish a collection of songs and tunes under his own name. Sadly, Burns didn't live to complete this work.

In 1790 (age 31), Burns won an appointment to a government post in the Excise through the largess of a politically connected patron: He left Ellisland to become... a tax collector. He longed to leave the physical labor of the farm behind, to gain a modest but steady income, to have more time for his poetry and song. But it seems that Burns just traded one headache for another. He did have more time for his art, but lost his inspirational, rural setting, and still endured long hours of stressful work, including long rides in inclement weather. Burns (who was always suceptable to the infirmities of 18th century life) was often ill with violent colds and fevers during his final years with the Excise. Who knows how much this may have contributed to his eventual demise from rheumatic fever, at the age of 37?

Some biographers speak of the last period of Burns' life as one of tarnished and faded celebrity, and this is true up to a point. Burns did settle into a much more prosaic existence than that of his glory days as the darling of Edinburgh society, but his life went on. There were more love affairs, his marriage to Jean Armour, more affairs, and more children, both in and out of wedlock. His poetry output slowed, but still included some of his greatest works, including his masterpiece, Tam o' Shanter. And there were always the songs - 370 of them. One of my favorites is Of a' the Airts:

Of a the airts the wind can blaw,
I dearly like the west,
For there the bonie lassie lives,
The lassie I lo'e best:
There wild woods grow, and rivers row
and monie a hill between;
but day and night my fancy's flight
is ever wi' my Jean.

I see her in the dewy flowers,
I see her sweet and fair:
I hear her in the tunefu' birds,
I hear her charm the air:
There's not a bonie flower that springs
by fountain, shaw, or green;
there's not a bonie bird that sings,
but minds me o my Jean.

Burns lived a full life, as father, husband, lover, intellectual and poet. In his art, and life, he loved beauty and honesty, while despising arrogance and hypocrisy. He loved a good party, a good story, good song, and a good drink with friends. He loved life; he loved the lassies; and he loved being one of the boys. That's why we love celebrating his spirit and toast his memory, even today, over 200 years after his death.

Well, "nae man can tether time or tide." The hour approaches when even this long-winded blast must blaw it's last. So, if you haven't yet snuck a gill or two under the table (I did suggest bringing your flasks on the invitation, didn't I?), now is the time to raise your glasses and rise. I offer a toast... to a poet of the ages... to Scotland's best-loved son... to the Immortal Memory of Robert Burns!

A bonnie lass, I will confess,
Is pleasant to the e'e,
But without some better qualities,
She's no a lass for me

But it's not her air, her form, her face,
Tho' matching beauty's fabled queen;
Tis the mind that shines in ev'ry grace
An' chiefly in rogueish een

But, Tibbie, lass tak my advice,
Your daddy's gear maks you sae nice'
The deil a ane wad spier your price
Were ye as poor as I.

Welcome, my bonnie, sweet wee dochter -
Tho' ye come here a wee unsought for,
An' tho' your comin I hae fought for
Baith kirk an' queir;
Yet by my faithm y're no unwrought for!
That I swear!

Ae fond kiss and then we sever!
Ae fareweel, alas, for ever!
Deep in heart-wrung tears I'll pledge thee,
Warring sighs and groans I'll wage thee.
Who shall say that fortune grieves him
While the star of hope she leaves him?
Me, nae cheerfu' twinkle lights me,
Dark despair around benights me.

I'll ne'er blame my partial fancy,
Naething could resist my Nancy;
But to see her was to love her,
Love but her, and love for ever.
Had we never lov'd sae kindly,
Had we never lov'd sae blindly,
Never met - or never parted,
We had ne'er been broken hearted.

If you rattle along like your Mistress's tongue,
Your speed will outrival the dart;
But a fly for your load, you'll break down on the road,
If your stuff be as rotten as her heart.

So vile was poor Wat,
such a miscreant Slave
That the worms even damn'd him
when laid in the grave;
"In his skull there's a famine!"
a starved reptile cries.
"And his heart it is poison"
another replies.

"...Such was the irresistible power of attraction that encircled him, though his appearance and manner were always peculiar, he never failed to delight and excel. His figure seemed to bear testimony to his earlier destination and employments. It seemed rather moulded by nature for the rough excercises of Agriculture rather than the gentler cultivation of the Belles Lettres. (I think this means he had a nice body!). His features were stamped with the hardy character of independence, and the firmness of conscious, though not arrogant, pre-eminence; the animated expressions of countenance were almost peculiar to himself; the rapid lightnings of his eye were always the harbinger of some flash of genius, whether they darted the fiery glances of insulted and indignant superiority, or beamed with impassioned sentiment of fervid and impetuous affections. His voice alone could improve on the magic of his eyes. Sonorous, replete with the finest modulations, it alternatively captivated the ear with the melody of poetic numbers, the perspicuity of nervous reasoning, or the ardent sallies of enthusiastic patriotism."

The Henpecked Husband

Curs'd be the man, the poorest wretch in life,
The crouching vassal to the tyrant wife!
Who has no will but by her high permission;
Who has not sixpence but in her possession;
Who must to her his dear friend's secret tell;
Who dreads a curtain lecture worse than hell.
Were such the wife had fallen to my part,
I'd break her spirit, or I'd break her heart:
I'd charm her with the magic of a switch,
I'd kiss her maids, and kick the perverse bitch.

Lament him, Mauchline husbands a'
He aften did assist ye;
For if ye staid hale weeks awa'
Your wives, they never had miss'd ye

Ye Mauchline Bairns, as on ye pass
To School with hand thegither
O tread ye lightly on his grass, -
Perhaps he was your father.