The thunderstorm in _Tam o' Shanter_ is a
characteristic example. It is detailed and vivid and is for the moment
the center of interest; but it is introduced solely on Tam's account.
Oftener the wilder moods of the weather are used as settings for lyric
emotion. In _Winter, a Dirge_, the harmony of the poet's spirit with
the tempest is the whole theme, and in _My Nannie's Awa_ the same idea
is treated with more mature art:
Come autumn sae pensive, in yellow and gray,
And soothe me wi' tidings o' nature's decay;
The dark, dreary winter, and wild-driving snaw
Alane can delight me--now Nannie's awa.
Many poems are introduced with a note of the season, even when it has
no marked relation to the tone of the poem. _The Cotter's Saturday
Night_ opens with
November chill blaws loud wi' angry sugh;
_The Jolly Beggars_ with
When lyart leaves bestrew the yird;
_The Epistle to Davie_ with
While winds frae off Ben-Lomond blaw,
An' bar the doors wi' drivin' snaw,
though in this last case it is skilfully used to introduce the theme.
These introductions are probably less imitations of the traditional
opening landscape which had been a convention since the early Middle
Ages, than the natural result of a plowman's daily consciousness of
the weather.
For whether related organically to his subject or not, Burns's
descriptions of external nature are to a high degree marked by actual
experience and observation.
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