Auld Lang Syne

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,

And never brought to mind?

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,

And the days of auld lang syne?

For auld lang syne, my dear,

For auld lang syne,

We’ll tak’ a cup o’ kindness yet,

For auld lang syne.

-       Robert Burns[1]

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[1] Born in Alloway, Scotland, in 1759, Robert Burns was the first of William and Agnes Burns’ seven children. His father, a tenant farmer, educated his children at home. Robert also attended one year of mathematics schooling and, between 1765 and 1768, he attended an “adventure” school established by his father and John Murdock. His father died in bankruptcy in 1784, and Robert and his brother Gilbert took over the farming. This hard labor later contributed to the heart trouble Robert suffered as an adult.

At the age of fifteen, Burns had fallen in love and written his first poem. As a young man, he pursued both love and poetry with uncommon zeal. In 1785, he fathered the first of his fourteen children. His biographer, DeLancey Ferguson, said “it was not so much that he was conspicuously sinful as that he sinned conspicuously.” Between 1784 and 1785, Burns wrote many of the poems collected in his first book, Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect, printed in 1786 and paid for by subscriptions. It was an immediate success; Robert was celebrated throughout England and Scotland as a great “peasant-poet.”

In 1788, he and his wife, Jean Armour, settled in Ellisland, where Burns was given a commission as an excise officer. He also began to assist James Johnson in collecting folk songs for an anthology entitled The Scots Musical Museum. He spent the final twelve years of his life editing and imitating traditional folk songs for this volume and for Select Collection of Original Scottish Airs. These volumes were essential in preserving parts of Scotland’s cultural heritage and include such well-known songs as My Luve is Like a Red Red Rose and Auld Land Syne. He died from heart disease at the age of thirty-seven. On the day of his death, his wife gave birth to his last son, Maxwell.

Most of Burns’ poems were written in Scots. They document and celebrate traditional Scottish culture, expressions of farm life, and class and religious distinctions. He wrote in a variety of forms: epistles to friends, ballads, and songs. His best-known poem is the mock-heroic Tam o’ Shanter. He is also well known for the over three hundred songs he wrote which celebrate love, friendship, work, and drink with often hilarious and tender sympathy. Even today, he is often referred to as the National Bard of Scotland.  (Source: poets.org)