A Red Red Rose

This find in my aunt’s garden triggered the memory of a poem well loved as a child..

I hold nothing against modern poems, and indeed indulge in the same, but I grew up reading old fashioned verses with their rhythms and refrains and still hold those dearer to my heart. I speak not of poetry that’s left bereft of life due to excessive concern about rhyming, but the words that spill forth in perfect harmony and with such ease that you cannot think of a possible way to make them sound better.

A splendid example is this sweet and simple classic by Robert Burns. 

O my Luve is like a red, red rose 

   That’s newly sprung in June; 

O my Luve is like the melody 

   That’s sweetly played in tune. 

So fair art thou, my bonnie lass, 

   So deep in luve am I; 

And I will luve 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; 

I will love thee still, my dear, 

   While the sands o’ life shall run. 

And fare thee weel, my only luve! 

   And fare thee weel awhile! 

And I will come again, my luve, 

   Though it were ten thousand mile.

💕