“MY passions,” he said, “when once lighted up, raged like so many devils till they got vent in rhyme, and then the conning over my verses, like a spell, soothed all into quiet.” And in another letter he tells us, “I never had the least thought or inclination of turning poet till I once got heartily in love, and then rhyme and song were in a mnner the spontaneous language of my heart.”
Burns and his Passions, p.20.
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