Robert Burns and Sir Walter Scott were great Scotsmen of letters. Their statues were erected in the late 1800s by American Scots who wished to draw a line connecting the New World to the Old. They flank the once fashionable promenade of the Mall, beneath American Elms long since grown tall. Separated by a generation, they evoke our eternal efforts to connect the ecstasy of origin with the dumb facts of here and now.


Robert Burns, with poet’s pen, looks upward (for inspiration?).

Burns, the elder, was much the greater poet, and remains perhaps Scotland’s most beloved figure. His verse flows freely, like a force of Nature. Scott was more scholarly and self conscious; his words more reliquary than relic. Burns lived his life like one of the characters Scott could only write about in his historical novels. Incipient Romanticism, versus the sort that lingers with us to this day. The ephemeral Spirit, and the desire to preserve it. I travel between these poles on every visit to the Park.


Walter Scott clutches a scholar’s notebook, and looks downward, searching for fragments of disappearing history.

So on our nation’s birthday, know that no nation stands alone. Borders enforce a confrontation with the Other, and though we retreat into our strongholds, distance fosters longing: for what we’ve lost, and what we’ve never known. This is true of Time and Space alike, but look closely, right here, where we live; some of these things are nearer than we guess.