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Wednesday, February 4, 2009

My Love's Like a Red, Red Rose

I’ve read several versions of this poem by Robert Burns and have no idea which is the original, but I’m not sure it matters. It was written more than two hundred years ago and, as love poems go, I think it’s a classic.



A Red, Red Rose

O, my love's like a red, red rose,
That's newly sprung in June.
O, my love's like a melody
That's sweetly play'd in tune.

So fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in love am I;
And I will love thee still, my dear,
Till a' the seas gang dry.

Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi' the sun:
And I will love thee still, my dear,
While the sands o' life shall run.

And fare thee well, my only love!
And fare thee well, a while!
And I will come again, my love,
Tho' it ware ten thousand mile.

~ Robert Burns

And I will love thee still, my dear, While the sands o' life shall run.

Don't you love that line? Writers always search for a fresh new way to say something like “until the end of time.” Burns achieved it with "the sands o' life."

He even looks like a romantic poet, don’t you think?

XOXO,
Lee

4 comments:

Rachel said...

I love this poem!

I also love his Tam O'Shanter, which opens with a description of the boys out having fun while their wives sit at home, waiting and fuming and "nursing their wrath to keep it warm."

I have been known to nurse a wrath or two in my time.

And as for love poems, Al Purdy's Arctic Rhododendrons is one of my all-time favourites, full of colour and sound and the delicacy that is love.

Lee McKenzie said...

Thanks, Rachel! "Nursing their wrath to keep it warm" is so much more evocative than waiting and fuming.

I'll look for Purdy's poem. Thanks for recommending it.

Anonymous said...

I don't think I've read that poem since high school and somehow I appreciate the words more now. Go figure.

I'll also look up Al Purdy's poem.

Sheryll

Lee McKenzie said...

You're so right, Sheryll. Our appreciation comes with wanting to read something rather than having to read it.