pupil. When not at school, the boys helped the father with his
work in the fields.
The school was closed some months after the boys had begun
attending it, and William Bums persuaded his neighbors to invite a
clever young man, Murdoch by name. Murdoch taught their
children language and grammar.
Robert was a capable boy. He became fond o f reading, learned
the French and Latin languages. His reputation as “untutored”,
which he himself helped to create, was false, for he had read
widely both in earlier Scottish poetry and English. His favorite
writers were Shakespeare, Steme, Smollett, and Robert Fergusson,
another talented Scottish poet (1750-1774). Bums started writing
poems at the age of seventeen. When he wrote in English, he
wrote as a cultivated English poet would write, and his Scottish
poems were not naive dialect pieces, but clever manipulations of
language varying from Ayrshire to standard E-nglish. He composed
verses to the melodies of old folk-songs, which he had admired
from his early childhood. He sang o f the woods, fields and
wonderful valleys o f his native land. Bums had a deep love for
Scotland, its history and folklore. The poet was deeply interested
in the glorious past of his country. He sang the beauty of his native
land where he had spent all his life. One o f such poems is “My
Heart’s in the Highlands”.
My Heart’s in the Highlands
My heart’s in the Highlands, my heart is not here,
My heart’s in the Highlands, a-chasing the deer,
Chasing the wild deer and following the roe.
My heart’s in the Highlands wherever I go.
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