It would be difficult to find anyone in any culture who has not heard or sung the heart warming song Auld Lang Syne to bring in the New Year, ‘for old times sake.’  While many recognize that it is associated with the National Poet of Scotland, Robert Burns, fewer know the role that ‘Rabbie’ played historically during the time of the American Revolution. On Sunday, January 24th, 2021, the Schiller Institute Chorus celebrated his birthday.

English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, in his essay, “A Defense of Poetry” established  that, in fact, it is the poets, who are the unacknowledged legislators of the world. In a moment as tumultuous as our present time, it is ever more important that we understand and develop in ourselves that poetic power capable of changing the course of human history for the better.