Burns Essay winner 2007

Alyona Alexeevna Blinova

Age: 14

Grade: 9

School: Grammar School 61,

St Petersburg,

Russia

‘The Best laid Schemes o’ Mice an’ Men gang aft agley’

“The best laid schemes o’mice an’men gang aft agley…” This is the line from the verse “To a Mouse” written by a world-famous Scottish poet, Robert Burns. Burns’s works have been translated into lots and lots of different languages spoken in different parts of the world. His verses in original are often difficult to understand for even the Scots because the dialect he used is considered partly artificial. But why do people still read and admire his poetry so much?

Robert Burns wasn’t well-educated, but his understanding of life and mankind substituted the education. He could draw profound thoughts out of even a very simple plot about the mouse. The mouse had thought she was prepared for winter. But suddenly she was turned “up in her nest with the plough”. Now she is faced with trying to survive with very little hope in sight. Burns may compare his own hard times with that of the mouse – times of very hard struggle and work without rewarding.

Our fate always makes unexpected turns when we are not ready for them, that is what I think about when reading the poem. When we just begin to feel confident in the next day something happens and turns our life upside down in one minute. This happens to everyone, and my family is not an exception.

This story took place with my granny when she was four years old. It was a warm and sunny day of June, and the air was full with aroma of lilacs when a little girl in a white polka-dotted dress came out of the stuffy train. Before her there were two weeks, two wonderful weeks in the vacation home standing on a lake shore on the outskirts of Moscow! The girl was shining with pleasure. She had always dreamt of going rowing on the lake and her dream was going to be fulfilled.

The water hissed calmly and foamed behind the small boat. The girl was looking charmed at the water, at the sky and at the forest behind the vacation home when she suddenly noticed someone shouting and showing something to them from the shore. She asked her mother to turn the boat.

“Mum, what does it mean, “The war has begun?” – repeated the girl but her mother didn’t answer. She looked shocked, and one or two tears fell from her cheeks to the sand of the beach. The sand was glittering like gold, the sun remained warm and smiling, nothing had changed…Save the war had begun.

The family escaped to Leningrad. They went on foot, but kept on going, because Leningrad was their home. They hoped to find protection and help there, in their native city. It was the only place where they could feel confident. But the destiny broke their hopes one more time.

The girl had already almost forgotten about the war. She spent her summer playing in the street when one day her mother ran out of her house, took her by hand and pulled her to a very strange place: it was cold and dark down in there, and lots of people crowded there, shocked and frightened. “It’s a bombardment”, said someone still, and this word filled all the space in one minute. Everyone repeated it, and the girl understood that since then there was no safe place for them.

And they left Leningrad, escaped, changed towns and homes…Everything came along – everything called the war. And all that – instead of two fabulous weeks near the lake.

It is wrong to think that only my granny’s life was broken on that day, the 22^nd of June 1941. The whole country shuddered when the war broke out unexpectedly. The plans, the arrangements, the dreams of millions of people were crossed out.

Do look: doesn’t it happen nowadays? Of course it does. The wars, such as the war in Iraq or between Lebanon and Israel, change lives of people, and not only the wars, but lots of other things cause this. No one can be certain about what happens tomorrow. And if it is proper or not – for me the answer is obvious.

Having thought about the world’s fate, I’ve nearly forgotten about the phrase which caused all my reasoning. This is what Robert Burns and his poetry do with me – and with everyone, who tries to ponder upon them. Burns wrote about life and he understood it better than many other people. That is why his verses are always true-to-life and up-to-date. Coming through the centuries, they do not lose their importance. Burns opened life to the readers – and life opens their souls and minds to his poetry. The time and the fate change everything, but his creation remains unchanged and helps us to understand the eternal principles of life in the world – life of a man, a mouse, a country or all the people on the Earth.

Inspired by Burns’s poetry and full with thoughts about the destiny of the world, I wrote the poem “The Dead City”:

Bang! But no one caught,

Only waves, waves, waves do lick the wound.

Scream! But no one help has brought,

Only after explosions the bare pockets of balconies are over the grass.

Not a human moan! It’s the moan of the dwelling.

The stones are afraid of going raving.

Even the Angel of Death there cries…

It signifies

That people decided that they can change the fates of others

And hurried:

Infantry, rockets and tanks,

And in the summer bangs, bangs, bangs!

And there people lived…

People like you: loved, believed and waited for the sunrise.

But there is no sun in the Dead City, I realize.

And the Life is one for all

And the Peace which everyone saw in shining dreams.

Everybody has the right to live

But someone adjudged

And deprived it from them pretending to be a judge.

I am – how simply! – for peace in all the world

And for the sun.

But the Dead City sleeps and will never arise.

And the Angel of Death flies, flies, flies…

But I’m afraid he’ll return.