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About Hesperian student / (Lincoln [Neb.]) 1872-1885 | View Entire Issue (Dec. 1, 1883)
?&' wwwwwy-yw 1&9M&& . .A. wtyfcit , ii w-fa. THE HESPERIAN STUDENT. 'Jk It IS ing in grnndcur oven to the divine Apocalypse. To litm belongs botli memory and prophecy and in him the two eternities ore blended in mystic dreams. BURNS. Prom time immemorial poets have taken as their themes Man and Nature. Upon these they have sung in varied strains, but, until the time of what is knrwii as the "New School of Poetry," always in a forced and unnatural man ner. This is especially true of the sulijcct, Man. In the eighteenth century new ideas were springing up in re gard to equality, both social and political. These reached their culmination in the outburst of the French Revolution. Prose writers such as Diderot, Rou-scau, anp Voltaire agitated tlio questions of inalienable rights and the natural freedom of mankind; and it is not strange that these ideas found expression in the poetry of the times Poverty, ignorance or low degree did not render false the well known line, "A man's a man for a' that," and where former poets had sung of an ideal being, n mere lay figs ure upon which they placed their own adornments of mental and moral qualities, the New School wrote of a real man, a man whose counterpart we have all seen and who, at first sight, appeared to possess absolutely noth ing out of which a beautiful poem could be constructed. Then, again until the time of Burns and his contempo raries nature had been employed merely as 3cenery be fore which the play of life was acted in its various phas es. But tiie new poets treated of nature as nature, and not simply as a background for the more prominent part of their verse. As the didactical and satirical poetry of fonner ycais was at last found inadequate to satisfy the desire for truth and beauty. At length there appeared as leaders of the reform, Cowper and Burns; Cowper in augeiated the poetry ot natural desciiptiou and Burns introduced into his songs the element of love, and be sides, used nature with far greater depth of thought and beauty of expression than did his renowned model. Thus it is seen that the place of Burns, as a pout, is one of the greatest importance. He was a poor boy whose father was baicly able to support his family by the sweat of his brow, and all of the youth's early life was spent in farm drudgery of the most toilsome kind. Without any educational facilities save those luruished by the coun try schools, and receiving no sympathy from his parents iu his literary pursuits, liu nevertheless almost intuitively caught the niceties of language and formed that pure and graceful style which has rendered his name hum or-, tal. When but seventeen lie commenced c imposing' verses, 'which were circulated among his relatives and the neign bors of liis family. lie had a great desire to emigrate to a less crowded locality and published u volume of his poems and ballads with the hope of obtaining u sufficient ' sumjlo pay his passage to .famaica. Hisjiopes were ic nlized and he was about to set sail when an invitation was given him to visit Edinburgh. lie .accepted aud thus the whole after.courae of his life was changed. At ' the city he was,bauqucled and made much of by admir ers aud friends. While he was the social star of ull the fashionable entertainments given by the patrons of liter a ture an irrational desire for strong drink took posession of him and continued his besetting sin iu after years. Although ho made many attempts at self-control lie was at length destroyed by this ungovernable passion. In Burns' poetry wo And that tenderness toward dumb animals which betokens an enlargement ofhumano sympathies. The kind aud gentle spirit manifested in hi i poem entitled "The Wounded Hare" and ''To a Mouse" was something novel and Interesting to his read ers. This kindly disposition pervading as uniformly as it, does the greater part of Ins writings, rendering his wit rather bright and pleasing than cutting and satirical. In 11 of Bums' poems wo flint truth. As a delineator of character he has but fow cquels and scarcely any supe riors. Burns' fame must rest upon his songs and not upon his longer poems. Pathos and humor, sparkling . wit and deep religous fo-vor, inimitable burlesque and wonderful insight into character all enter into their com plex fabric. But still, as Carylo tells U3 "tho writings that he has left seem but a poor mutilated fragment of what was in li'in." lie wrote, as the majority of lyric poets, not as a task, but from Inspiration. Many of his finest productions were almost impromptu, and a fow hours sulllced to polish a ballad to tho utmost degree of beauty and brillinnay. Among all his works, for variety of expression, no ono can compare with "Tain O'Slianter." Descriptive and meditative, ludicrous aud terrible, mirthful and sober, witty and earnest it affords ub a wonderful example of what a genius the writer possessed liis love songs aro tender in composition, elegant in expression and many aio unequalled in all literature for force and concentra tion of meaning. Robert Burns stands preeminent as the father of romantic poetry, a style which shines in tho productions of later writers. To Burns is duo the radi cal change f.-om artificiality and unnaturalness to truth and nature and tiiat choice of subjects which is peculiar to recent poets. Before Burns wo have the artificial style of Pope, after him the clear beauty of Wordsworth aud Tennyson. Previous to tho birth of romantic poetry bucIi subjects as were written upon far back iu antiquity were still tho themes of song. When Burns awakened tho English to a glad surprise, a new era had dawned, new thoughts, new emotions wero crowding in upon tho public notice. Many of these were embodied iu Ii i verso. The age of the classic po)ts was at au end, and amid the murmur ot woodland streams, the sough of tho wind through loaflo33 boughs, tho simple conversa tion of lowly folk and "tho touches of nature that mako tho whole world kin," the now, enduring roiuiiutic poetry wus ushered iu. '80. Tho University Voice of Wooster, Ohio, would present a much more respectable appcareuce if it .liscardod tho "patent side." But then, a patent is "filling and cheap." A first prop, of an inquisitive turu of tniud hands us tho following: Ed. Hes. Student After much inquiry among my friends and much study on my own part, I wish to propound to you a thus far unsolved problem. Since coming to school I have asked tho saino girl six different times and she always has a previous engage-' ment. Now what sort of a thing is a previous engage ment? Did you ever see one? Do the fellows buy 'oin and give them to their best girls? How is a fellow that wants a girl going to get a wholesale stock of previous engagements? Please answer these questions and ro leaso mo .from the present slough of provlousuess in which I am laboring. 4 wummmmmivnmmm3 BBBHMBH