In the pastoral song, ‘Behold, my Love, how Green the Groves,’ he says in the last verse:
These wild-wood flowers I’ve pu’d to deck
That spotless breast o’ thine;
The courtier’s gems may witness love,
But never love like mine.
In the dialogue song ‘Philly and Willy,’
He says,
As songsters of the early spring
Are ilka day more sweet to hear, each
So ilka day to me mair dear
And charming is my Philly.
She replies,
As on the brier the budding rose
Still richer breathes and fairer blows,
So in my tender bosom grows
The love I bear my Willy.
In ‘O Bonnie was yon Rosy Brier’ he says:
O bonnie was yon rosy brier
That blooms so far frae haunt o’ man;
And bonnie she, and ah, how dear!
It shaded frae the e’ening sun.
Yon rosebuds in the morning dew,
How pure amang the leaves sae green;
But purer was the lover’s vow
They witnessed in their shade yestreen.
All in its rude and prickly bower,
That crimson rose, how sweet and fair.
But love is far a sweeter flower,
Amid life’s thorny path o’ care.
In ‘A Health to Ane I Loe Dear’—one of his most perfect love-songs—he says:
Thou art sweet as the smile when fond lovers meet,
And soft as their parting tear.
······
’Tis sweeter for thee despairing
Than aught in the world beside.
In ‘My Peggy’s Charms,’ describing Miss Margaret Chalmers, Burns confines himself mainly to her mental and spiritual charms. This was clearly a distinctive characteristic of nearly the whole of his love-songs. No other man ever wrote so many pure songs without suggestion of the flesh as did Robert Burns.
My Peggy’s face, my Peggy’s form,
The frost of hermit age might warm;
My Peggy’s worth, my Peggy’s mind,
Might charm the first of human kind.
I love my Peggy’s angel air,
Her face so truly, heavenly fair.
Her native grace, so void of art;
But I adore my Peggy’s heart.
The tender thrill, the pitying tear,
The generous purpose, nobly dear;
The gentle look that rage disarms—
These are all immortal charms.