It just so happens I went to a Scottish tea at the Strathmore Music Center last week that was held to mark the birthday of Robert Burns.DWill wrote:. . . I was remiss and didn't note that Robert Burn's birthday was yesterday, Jan. 25.
I volunteer to be that unlucky soul. I have a birthday coming up, it would make a swell birthday gift.I learned the poem as I remember the performer reading it, and today I can still inflict on an unlucky person a recital in an alarming Scots brogue.
I found this on the Vermont Historical Society webpage --While walking in Barre, VT one day, I came upon a statue of Burns on a square. No idea why it was there.
Why a Burns Sculpture in Barre?
Beginning in 1880, Scottish granite workers arrived in Barre as the town’s granite industry burgeoned. By the turn of the century, Scots accounted for twenty-percent of Barre’s population. The Burns Club of Barre, founded in 1890, was a natural outgrowth of this influx.
On January 25, 1897, members of the Burns Club met and decided a commemorative statue should be erected in Barre in celebration of the 100th anniversary of Burns’ death. The statue was conceived and modeled by J. Massey Rhind. James B. King of Milford, N.H. modeled the four panels. Samuel Novelli carved the statue, and Elia Corti, considered one of the finest sculptors in Barre, carved the panels. In 1901, Novelli and Corti joined together to form a carving studio noted for its fine sculpture.
The unveiling ceremony was a dramatic affair on July 24, 1899. Miss Florence Inglis, dressed and crowned as the Scottish Muse, drew a cord and presented the statue to more than 10,000 people in attendance. The Burns monument, dedicated to the poet from Scotland, thus became the first civic monument in Barre.
The monument itself stands 22 feet and 4 inches above the foundation, and the statue is 9 feet 4 inches in height. The high- and low-relief panels on the sides, demonstrating the artists’ exemplary sculpting skills, depict scenes from three of Burns’ famous poems, “The Cotter’s Saturday Night,” “To a Mountain Day,” and “Tam O’Shanter’s Ride.” The fourth panel shows Burns’s cottage in Ayr, Scotland. According to a publicity pamphlet from the 1890s, the sculpture “is considered one of the world’s art treasures.”
The statue of Burns shows the poet returning from his day’s toil, dressed in the garb of a ploughman, sleeves rolled up, bareheaded, his coat on his arm, eyes on the ground and seemingly in thoughtful meditation.