Songs and lyrics of Robert Burns

Chapter 10: MY LOVE IS LIKE A RED RED ROSE

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About This Book

A collected selection of the poet's songs and shorter lyrics presents his explorations of love, nature, rural Scottish life, patriotism, and social observation, often rendered in Scots dialect and intended for musical performance. The volume groups brief pieces alongside several longer poems, supplies a glossary of dialect terms and an index of first lines, and includes illustrative plates. Many lyrics evoke landscapes, domestic scenes, and communal gatherings, balancing tenderness and satire while varying tone from celebratory to elegiac. The arrangement favors lyrical vitality rather than strict chronology, offering readers both popular airs and more extended narrative poems within a single accessible anthology.

MY LOVE IS LIKE A RED RED ROSE

My love is like a red red rose

That’s newly sprung in June:

My love is like the melodie

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 weel, my only love,

And fare thee weel awhile!

And I will come again, my love,

Tho’ it were ten thousand mile.