The Coldstream Burns Club held their seventh annual ceremony on Sunday at the Tweed Bridge to commemorate Rabbie Burns' visit to the town on May 7, 1787 when he crossed the bridge to stand on English soil for the first time in his life. starts an article in this week's Berwickshire. As part of the celebrations the Chairman knelt on the bridge and recited a stanza from 'The Cotters Saturday Night' as Burns himself had done 221 years ago. Perhaps this one (It is a very long poem) :


From scenes like these, old Scotia's grandeur springs,
That makes her lov'd at home, rever'd abroad:
Princes and lords are but the breath of kings,
"An honest man's the noblest work of God;"
And certes, in fair virtue's heavenly road,
The cottage leaves the palace far behind;
What is a lordling's pomp? a cumbrous load,
Disguising oft the wretch of human kind,
Studied in arts of hell, in wickedness refin'd!

Its a mystery according to a Dinger acquaintance why the Rabbie paid only one visit to Coldstream-and then merely as a transit point to England. It could be that he took a bit of a scunner to the place and there is some evidence for this in a stanza, apparently from the same poem which has recently come to light having been 'lost' for years It goes as follows:


And as for this wee scruffie Border toon
Whose Bonnie Brig has oe’r it history writ
The burghers wish that returning soon
This Bard can further glorie it
Ah! Wait for bluest of Blue Moon
Afore my steps again will hasten here
With watered ale, no change from honest Poun
A firm response: Return? No bluidy fear!
style="font-weight:bold;">

There is no evidence that it was the present Besom Inn which so got up the Bard's nose, so to speak.

Labels: Burns, Coldstream

  ¶ 5:50 PM