In 1785, just a year before his death at age 37, Robert Burns enshrined ‘the pith of sense and pride of work’ above wealth or aristocratic birth in his poem A Man’s a Man for all That.
Burns knew the privations of poverty from the earliest age yet became a legendary poet and favorite son of Scotland. He deftly strips away the affectations of rank and declares; “The honest man, though ever so poor, Is king of men for all that.
Burns’ simple adage ‘a man’s a man’ proclaims that, under any superficial differences, we are linked together by the common bonds of humanity. History teaches the profit of concentrating on this most basic connections and the great loss when we do not.
Scouting points us in the same direction. One learns the true values of others when they learn their own value. We can achieve without lessening others; goodwill, brotherhood and our very selves are refreshed in sharing, in giving.
Scouts reach for Burn’s aspiration:
That sense and worth over all the earth
Shall have the first place and all that!
For all that, and all that
It is coming yet for all that,
That man to man the world over
Shall brothers be for all that.
Full text of the poem after the break
A Man’s a Man for A’ That
Robert Burns
Is there for honest poverty
That hangs his head, and all that?
The coward slave, we pass him by –
We dare be poor for all that!
For all that, and all that,
Our toils obscure, and all that,
The rank is but the guinea’s stamp,
The man’s the gold for all that.
What though on homely fare we dine,
Wear course grey woolen, and all that?
Give fools their silks, and knaves their wine –
A man is a man for all that.
For all that, and all that,
Their tinsel show, and all that,
The honest man, though ever so poor,
Is king of men for all that.
You see yonder fellow called ‘a lord,’
Who struts, and stares, and all that?
Though hundreds worship at his word,
He is but a dolt for all that.
For all that, and all that,
His ribboned, star, and all that,
The man of independent mind,
He looks and laughs at all that.
A prince can make a belted knight,
A marquis, duke, and all that!
But an honest man is above his might –
Good faith, he must not fault that
For all that, and all that,
Their dignities, and all that,
The pith of sense and pride of worth
Are higher rank than all that.
Then let us pray that come it may
(As come it will for a’ that)
That Sense and Worth over all the earth
Shall have the first place and all that!
For all that, and all that,
It is coming yet for all that,
That man to man the world over
Shall brothers be for all that.