Robert Burns & His Masonic Poems B
rother Robert Burns is considered the national poet of Scotland. Born into a farming family and raised on a smallholding in 1759 in Alloway, he wrote lyrics and songs in Scots and in English. This upbringing earned him the name “Ploughman Poet” once he began to be recognized for his poetry. One of Robert Burns’s best-known poems is the mock-heroic “Tam o’ Shanter,” published in 1791. He is also well known for his contribution to over three hundred songs that celebrate love, friendship, work, and drink, often with hilarious and tender sympathy, such as “Auld Lang Syne.” Scattered among Burns’s poetry are several pieces which have a true Masonic ring and can only be properly understood and appreciated by Masons. Many references to Freemasonry occur in his other writings. Burns’s poems can be satirical but also full of sentiment; they deal with love and lust, human foibles and hypocrisies; they show a deep knowledge of and love of the natural world (especially horses, dogs, mice and lice); they can be funny and moving by turns. What makes them special is the way he writes about all of the above: his craftsmanship and use of language, his skill at rhyming, and his use of traditional forms in a new way. He was an artist who absorbed everything and rewrote it. Essentially you feel this is a man who knows the truth about the human condition – whatever faults he may have had (and he admitted to plenty) just add to that knowledge. He is truly a poet who speaks to all, a poet for all seasons. There are numerous Lodges internationally that recognize this esteemed Brother, including our own Robert Burns Lodge No. 97.
BURNS WAS INITIATED IN 1781 IN ST. DAVID’S LODGE, TARBOLTON
2 | O R EG O N M A S O N I C N E W S
IN 1787, HE BECAME A ROYAL ARCH MASON AT ST. ABB’S LODGE AT EYEMOUTH
HE SERVED AS ‟DEPUTE MASTER” OF ST. JAMES - TARBOLTON LODGE
