POETS have always inspired painters - and of course vice versa.

The distinguished Scottish artist Elizabeth Blackadder reacts with quiet understanding to selected poems (or extracts thereof) of Robert Burns in a Brush with Burns (Renaissance Press, £9.99). This sample is aptly illustrated by a blackbird.

from EPISTLE TO DAVIE, A BROTHER POET

What tho, like commoners of air,

We wander out, we know not where,

But either house or hal'?

Yet Nature's charms, the hills and woods,

The sweeping vales, and foaming floods,

Are free alike to all.

In days when daisies deck the ground,

And blackbirds whistle clear,

With honest joys our hearts will bound,

To see the coming year:

On braes when we please then,

We'll sit and sowth a tune;

Syne rhyme till't, we'll time till't,

And sing't when we hae done.