Robert Burns Night

Robert Burns was initiated into masonic Lodge St David Tarbolton on 4 July 1781, when he was 22

Robert Burns was the Poet Laureate of the Lodge St. Andrew in Edinburgh in 1787.  That title has been accepted for him by Freemasonry in general.  


My favorite poem by Burns is "To a Louse - On seeing one on a lady's bonnet at church."  It ends with the stanza:

O would some Power the gift to give us

To see ourselves as others see us!

It would from many a blunder free us,

And foolish notion:

What airs in dress and gait would leave us,

And even devotion!

"Burns Night, effectively a second national day, is celebrated on 25 January with Burns suppers around the world, and is still more widely observed than the official national day, St. Andrew's Day. The first Burns supper in The Mother Club in Greenock was held on what they thought was his birthday on 29 January 1802, but in 1803 they discovered from the Ayr parish records that the correct date was 25 January 1759. The format of Burns suppers has not changed since. The basic format starts with a general welcome and announcements, followed with the Selkirk Grace. After the grace, comes the piping and cutting of the haggis, where Burns' famous Address To a Haggis is read and the haggis is cut open. The event usually allows for people to start eating just after the haggis is presented. This is when the reading called the "immortal memory", an overview of Burns' life and work, is given; the event usually concludes with the singing of Auld Lang Syne."

Tonight the Des Moines Scottish Rite will hold a Burn's Night but they are serving Roast Crown of Beef instead of Haggis.  I suppose I am glad of that but wonder if it will be an official Burns Night without it.  They will have pipes and drums so I suppose it is all right.  Anyway I am looking forward to attending. And I am taking a bottle of Scotch with me..