Alan H and the Luminous Joan in Scotland- let the photo onslaught begin! Days 1-2

[Alan H]

I promised a look into the lives of Robert Louis Stevenson, Robert Burns and Robert Fergusson, didn't I? Well, let's get started.

Here's a memorial sculpture to Robert Fergusson, native of Edinburgh.



And here, my friends is why he is important.... Because during Robert Fergussons short life...he fell down some stairs in his boarding house when he was 23 and was shortly thereafter consigned to the Edinburgh mental sanitarium.... he wrote some wonderful poetry in the Scots dialect.

Read about him, here: http://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org...bert-fergusson

The Daft-Days


Now mirk December’s dowie face
Glowrs owr the rigs wi sour grimace,
While, thro’ his minimum of space,
The bleer-ey’d sun,
Wi blinkin light and stealing pace,
His race doth run.

From naked groves nae birdie sings,
To shepherd’s pipe nae hillock rings,
The breeze nae od’rous flavour brings
From Borean cave,
And dwyning nature droops her wings,
Wi visage grave.

That's just the first two stanza's there's more. Robert Burns said that Fergusson was a HUGE influence on him, and when he discovered that Fergusson had died stone broke and was buried in a paupers grave in Canongate Kirkyard, he paid for a real headstone. After a long time went by, that headstone showed some wear and tear.... and Robert Louis Stevenson paid to have it renovated, calling his expense "a gift from one Edinburgh lad to another."

And here is that headstone.





Read the inscription, you can see it in the picture. Can you guess what I'll be speaking about at the next Burns Night?