Birthday Blogging

I share my birthday with the Scottish poet Robert Burns

Consider haggis

It might be inexorably linked with Burns Night and considered the epitome of all things Scottish, but is it right that haggis should be held up as Scotland's national dish?

(Reuters Life!) - Scots around the world celebrate the birthday of their national bard on Tuesday with the discovery of an unpublished letter from the poet Robert Burns, a new museum dedicated to him and a new poet laureate.

Ahead of the festivities marking Burns' birth on January 25, 1795, Scotland honored one of its 21st century literary stars by appointing Liz Lochhead as its new Makar, or poet laureate.

Lochhead, 63, a distinguished poet and playwright, succeeds the nation's first Makar, Edwin Morgan, who died last year.

"I accept it on behalf of poetry itself, which is, and always has been, the core of our culture, and in grateful recognition of the truth that poetry...matters deeply to ordinary Scottish people everywhere," Lochhead said.

Birthday Blogging

I share my birthday with the Scottish poet Robert Burns



To A Mouse, On Turning Her Up In Her Nest With The Plough

Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie,
O, what a panic's in thy breastie!
Thou need na start awa sae hasty,
Wi' bickering brattle!
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, whiles, 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' waste,
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 mony 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 art 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!

It is celebrated with a Burns Supper

from the Guardian - How to make your own haggis

From the BBC - 250 years of Robert Burns