Date Published: 25th January 2021

Give us your hand – here’s ours:

All Scotland, though a little quieter now,

Is a bit happier in your company,

A bit wiser from your words.

As we celebrate the life of the poet Robert Burns on 25 January, we are doing so with Covid restrictions firmly in mind: we can’t gather together this year for haggis and whisky and whirling kilts but we can join in a live, virtual Burns Night celebration with the Scotsman newspaper and their popular podcast, Scran. Our own Alexander McCall Smith has written a poem for the occasion and will read it live online. For more information see the Scotsman website.

Missing you already by Alexander McCall Smith

∗ What’s two hundred and twenty-five years In any full-blooded scale of things? Not all that much really – There are some who still feel, Against all the literary evidence, That Homer sat down to the Iliad Not all that long ago, Or at least not so long That we’ve forgotten the gist Of what he said about windy Troy – Poets have a way of persisting Long after their lyres Have lost their strings And been put away in the cupboard; Their voices have a way Of lingering, reminding us, At unexpected times of why it was That we were initially so struck By what they had to say to us. ∗ You are certainly still there, As real as the day before yesterday, Saying all those familiar things That seem every bit as important As they were when you First said them, reminding us To be human first of all, and then, if we can, To delight, in our individual ways, In the ordinary doings of folk And the ways of nature, to look With your eyes and your humour, Your passions, too, at those around us; To share your vision of what It is that makes this life So precious, so amusing, And so poignant – all of that. ∗ We still need you, you know, And you might be surprised To hear just how deep and lasting That need has turned out to be; Especially now, when so much Of what you wrote about Seems a bit of a distant memory – Fellowship in some inn somewhere A rural dance, time in the company Of friends – things you put into song That we think we remember And that we’d like to experience again. ∗ Of course, we can do that, with you As our companion, Robert Burns, The party is taking place, the warmth is there To be felt; the lights are on again. Give us your hand – here’s ours: All Scotland, though a little quieter now, Is a bit happier in your company, A bit wiser from your words.   Join Alexander reading from this poem at a live Burn’s Night celebration with the Scotsman and Scran podcast.