It’s the 25^th of January: Burns Night. To celebrate the bard, I present his final and most extraordinary poem. It’s not good. However, it’s extraordinary. In fact, it’s unbelievable.

There are three reasons why it’s extraordinary. First, it’s his least known poem. Even experts know nothing about it. Second, Burns never wrote it down. He expressed it in the form of rapping. Third, he composed it in the 1850s. As Burns died in 1796, this is particularly extraordinary.

No, I’m not making this up.

The poem was published in a spiritualist journal, The Yorkshire Spiritual Telegraph (April, 1855). The journal explains that, during a séance, some spiritualists contacted the spirit of Burns. They wanted to know what he thought about a Scotsman called John Henry Anderson.

Who?

Anderson was a famous magician at the time. He was, perhaps, the first magician to produce a rabbit from a hat. However, he was also an enemy of spiritualism. He denounced spirit mediums – and what they did at séances – as fraud and deception. When he performed on stage, he pretended to conjure up the spirits, and told everyone that it was trickery.

Naturally, this upset spiritualists.

So, when the spiritualists contacted the spirit of Burns, they wondered what he thought about his fellow Scotsman. They asked Burns ‘if he would favour us with a verse or two upon the man [Anderson] and his profession’. And, we’re told, Burns agreed.

Burns communicated through spirit rapping. In other words, the spirit made rapping noises to indicate letters of the alphabet. This would have taken a while. When the work was complete, it bore an uncanny resemblance to a poem that Burns had written while still alive. Except that it wasn’t as good. In any case, here it is:

If this was Burns, however spiritual, it clearly wasn’t his best material. And, at the time, some were sceptical. Well, almost everyone was sceptical. You’re probably sceptical yourself. Me too. It’s unbelievable. So, in a bid to confirm the story, I contacted the spirit of Burns myself.

This was his reply (which, if real, now qualifies as his last poem):

‘It wisnae me.

It wisnae me.

Ah’m tellin’ ye,

It wisnae me.’

I know, you think I’m making this bit up. But then he added, in a more Burns-like manner:

‘If there’s another world, ah wid hae done better than this’.

Think what you like, but I believe that it’s just as real as the other one.

In any case, since the spirits are handy, let’s raise a glass to the immortal memory of the man himself: Robert Burns!