102 LANDSCAPE AND LITERATURE 



We must bear in mind that he was born and spent 

 his boyhood within sight and hearing of the open 

 Firth of Clyde. The dash of the breakers along the 

 sandy beach behind his father's c clay biggin ' must 

 have been one of the most familiar sounds to his 

 young ears. Yet the allusions to the sea in his 

 poems betray little trace of this association. They 

 are in large measure introduced to mark the wide 

 distance between separated friends. 



It must be remembered, however, that his life, after 

 he began to write, was passed inland, where the wide 

 firth could only be seen from the rising ground at 

 a distance of several miles. Yet Burns has left testi- 

 mony that his imagination had not been insensible to 

 the life and movement of the ocean. One of the most 

 effective touches in his picture of the night scene in 

 the Brigs of Ayr is given in the reference to the 

 neighbouring sea 



c The tide-swollen Firth, wi' sullen-sounding roar, 

 Through the still night dashed hoarse along the shore ' ; 



and when his native Muse gives him her benediction 

 she tells how she had watched his passionate love of 



1 1 saw thee seek the sounding shore, 

 Delighted with the dashing roar; 

 Or when the North his fleecy store 



Drove thro' the sky; 

 I saw grim Nature's visage hoar 



Strike thy young eye.' 1 



II. The UPLANDS of the British Isles consist of 

 undulating plains or plateaux which lie from 1000 to 



* The Vision. 



