It is na, Jean, thy bonnie face,
Nor shape that I admire;
Although thy beauty and thy grace
Might weel awake desire.
Something in ilka part o’ thee
To praise, to love, I find;
But dear as is thy form to me,
Still dearer is thy mind.
In ‘Delia—an Ode,’ he uses the ‘fair face of orient day,’ and ‘the tints of the opening rose’ to suggest her beauty, and ‘the lark’s wild warbled lay’ and the ‘sweet sound of the tinkling rill’ to suggest the sweetness of her voice.
In ‘I Gaed a Waefu’ Gate Yestreen’ he says:
She talked, she smiled, my heart she wiled;
She charmed my soul, I wist na how.
It was the soul of Burns that responded to love. Neither Alison Begbie nor Mary Campbell excelled in beauty, and no one acquainted with their high character could have had the temerity to suggest that love for them was ‘the love of the flesh.’ His beautiful poems to Jean Armour place his love for her on a high plane. He was a man of strong passion, but passion was not the source of his love.
In ‘Aye sae Bonnie, Blythe and Gay’ he says:
She’s aye sae neat, sae trim, sae light, the graces round her hover,
Ae look deprived me o’ my heart, and I became her lover
‘Ilka bird sang o’ its love’ he makes Miss Kennedy say in ‘The Banks o’ Doon.’ As the birds ever sang love to Burns, he naturally makes them sing love to all hearts.
In ‘The Bonnie Wee Thing’ he gives high qualifications for love kindling:
Wit, and grace, and love, and beauty
In ae constellation shine;
To adore thee is my duty,
Goddess o’ this soul o’ mine.