Poems and Songs of Robert Burns

Chapter 503: Inconstancy In Love

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About This Book

The collection assembles lyrical songs, narrative poems, satirical pieces, epistles, epitaphs, and fragments that shift between convivial drinking verses, tender laments, and comic storytelling. Many lyrics were shaped to traditional airs and preserve vernacular speech, while longer works portray rural labor, domestic scenes, and compassionate encounters with animals. Satire targets religious hypocrisy and social pretension, and several poems take a direct, personal tone of moral reflection or affectionate address. The selections alternate moods and forms, emphasizing melodic phrasing and a versatile technical range.

Inconstancy In Love

Tune—“Duncan Gray.”

Let not Woman e’er complain Of inconstancy in love; Let not Woman e’er complain Fickle Man is apt to rove: Look abroad thro’ Nature’s range, Nature’s mighty Law is change, Ladies, would it not seem strange Man should then a monster prove! Mark the winds, and mark the skies, Ocean’s ebb, and ocean’s flow, Sun and moon but set to rise, Round and round the seasons go. Why then ask of silly Man To oppose great Nature’s plan? We’ll be constant while we can— You can be no more, you know.