Read the text and do the exercises that follow it. Study the following vocabulary before reading the text:

Study the following vocabulary before reading the text:

to be well-read – быть хорошо начитанным

verse = poem

a tutor – домашний учитель

to plough – пахать

The greatest Scottish poet Robert Burns(1759–1796) was born in the family of a poor farmer. He was the eldest of seven children. He spent his youth working on his father’s farm, but in spite of his poverty he was extremely well-read: His father employed a tutor for Robert and his younger brother Gilbert. At 15 Robert wrote his first verse “My Handsome Nell”.

When his father died in 1784, Robert and his brother became partners in the farm. However, Robert was more interested in the romantic nature of poetry than in the hard work of ploughing. He was thinking of leaving his farm and going away to the warmer and sunnier climate of the West Indies. At the same time he continued writing poetry.

But he did not go to the West Indies. His first book “Poems Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect” (a set of poems essentially based on a broken love affair) was published and was highly praised by the critics. This made him stay in Scotland. He moved to Edinburgh. The artists and writers of Scotland’s capital enthusiastically received the Ploughman poet. In a few weeks he was transformed from a local hero to a national celebrity.

Robert Burns travelled much about Scotland collecting popular songs. He discovered long forgotten songs and wrote his own verses. Robert Burns’s poetry was inspired by his deep love for his motherland, for its history and folklore. His beautiful poem “My Heart’s in the Highlands”, full of colourful descriptions, is a hymn to the beauty of Scotland’s nature and to its glorious past.

Burns’s poetry is closely connected with the national struggle of the Scottish people for their liberation from English oppression, the struggle that had been going on in Scotland for many centuries. His favourite heroes were William Wallace, the leader of the uprising against the English oppressors, and Robert Bruce, who defeated the English army and later became king of Scotland.

Robert Burns died at the age of 37 of heart disease caused by the hard work he had done when he was young. On the day of his burial more than 10,000 people came to pay their respect to the great bard. On the anniversary of his birth, January 25, Scots both at home and abroad celebrate Robert Burns. And not only Scots. Robert Burns’s birthday is celebrated annually by the lovers of poetry in many countries of the world.