Happy Robbie Burns Day!

I'd like to take time someday to research this guy a bit more. The Ploughman Poet. There's something about him that just strikes a chord. Maybe it has something to do with working on a farm, trying to make ends meet, and at the same time, trying to fulfill an urge to create beauty and reach others.

Here he is described:
His person was strong and robust; his manners rustic, not clownish, a sort of dignified plainness and simplicity which received part of its effect perhaps from knowledge of his extraordinary talents. - Walter Scott

And I love his writing style:
I walk out, sit down now and then, look out for objects in nature around me that are in unison or harmony with the cogitations of my fancy and workings of my bosom, humming every now and then the air with the verses I have framed. when I feel my Muse beginning to jade, I retire to the solitary fireside of my study, and there commit my effusions to paper, swinging, at intervals, on the hind-legs of my elbow chair, by way of calling forth my own critical strictures, as my, pen goes. - Robert Burns

Here's my favourite poem by Scotlands Favourite Son (and why shouldn't it be!)

Anna
Yestreen I had a pint o' wine
A place where body saw na;
Yestreen lay on this breat o' mine
The gowden locks of Anna.

The hungry Jew in wilderness
Rejoicing o'er his manna
Was naething to my hiney bliss
Upon the lips of Anna.

Ye Monarchs take the East and West
Frae Indus to Savannah:
Gie me within my straining grasp
The melting form of Anna!

There I'll despise Imperial charms,
An empress or sultana,
While dying raptures in her arms,
I give an' take wi' Anna!

Awa, thou flaunting God of Day!
Awa, thou pale Diana!
Ilk star, gae hide thy twinkling ray,
When I'm to meet my Anna!

Come, in thy raven plumage, Night
Sun, Moon, and Stars, withdrawn a'
And bring an Angel-pen to write
My transports with my Anna!

The Kirk and State may join, an tell
To do sic things I maunna:
The Kirk and State may gae to Hell,
And I'll gae to my Anna.

She is the sunshine o' my e'e,
To live but her I canna:
Had I on earth but wishes three,
The first should be my Anna.

Robert Burns