The gifted one from Ayrshire more than a man of rhyme <br />His poems and odes and verses have withstood the test of time <br />All around this World we live in from north to southern shore <br />The songs of Robert Burns will be sung forever more. <br /> <br />The memories come to me of when I was a boy <br />As we sat around an Irish travellers camp fire on an evening in July <br />The gray haired nomadic singer 'Afton Waters' did sing <br />In the calm gathering twilight the minstrel's voice did ring. <br /> <br />I asked one of the travellers who wrote this marvellous song <br />And he replied those beautiful words to all of mankind now belong <br />From the pen of Robert Burns he was one who lived it hard <br />He was the pride of Scotland and his Country's finest bard. <br /> <br />My first introduction to Burns from one of the travelling clan <br />A fiddler and a singer and a born to wander man <br />At cross roads and at horse fairs and around the countryside <br />The songs of the Highland Ploughboy he broadcast far and wide. <br /> <br />The great and gifted bard from Ayrshire did not live to be old <br />And the story of his amazing rise to fame so often has been told <br />And the music in his verses is there for all to see <br />And there may have been some great bards but few as great as he. <br /> <br />My first introduction to Burns came close to fifty years ago <br />Around a travellers camp fire when I was eight or so <br />the sweetness in the old singers voice a memory to enjoy <br />When he sang 'Afton Waters' on that evening in July.<br /><br />Francis Duggan<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/my-first-introduction-to-burns/
