or,
"O, my luve's like a red, red rose
That's newly sprung in June;
O, my luve's like the melodie
That's sweetly play'd in tune."
It would consume days to give the intense and tender lines—lines wet with the heart's blood, lines that throb and sigh and weep, lines that glow like flames, lines that seem to clasp and kiss.
But the most perfect love-poem that I know—pure the tear of gratitude—is "To Mary in Heaven:"
"Thou lingering star, with less'ning ray,
That lov'st to greet the early morn,
Again thou usher'st in the day
My Mary from my soul was torn.
O Mary! dear departed shade!
Where is thy place of blissful rest?
Seest thou thy lover lowly laid?
Hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast?
"That sacred hour can I forget?
Can I forget the hallow'd grove
Where, by the winding Ayr, we met,
To live one day of parting love?
Eternity will not efface
Those records dear of transports past;
Thy image at our last embrace;
Ah! little thought we 'twas our last!
"Ayr, gurgling, kiss'd his pebbled shore,
O'erhung with wild woods, thick'ning green;
The fragrant birch, and hawthorn hoar,
Twin'd am'rous round the raptur'd scene.
The flowers sprang wanton to be prest,
The birds sang love on ev'ry spray,
Till too, too soon, the glowing west
Proclaim'd the speed of wingèd day.
"Still o'er these scenes my mem'ry wakes,
And fondly broods with miser care!
Time but the impression stronger makes,
As streams their channels deeper wear.
My Mary, dear departed shade!
Where is thy blissful place of rest?
Seest thou thy lover lowly laid?
Hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast?"
Above all the daughters of luxury and wealth, above all of Scotland's queens rises this pure and gentle girl made deathless by the love of Robert Burns.
POET OF HOME
He was the poet of the home—of father, mother, child—of the purest wedded love.
In the "Cotter's Saturday Night," one of the noblest and sweetest poems in the literature of the world, is a description of the poor cotter going from his labor to his home:
"At length his lonely cot appears in view,
Beneath the shelter of an aged tree;
Th' expectant wee-things, toddlin', stacher through
To meet their Dad, wi' flichterin' noise and glee.
His wee bit ingle, blinkin' bonnilie,
His clean hearth-stane, his thrifty wifie's smile,
The lisping infant prattling on his knee,
Does a' his weary carking cares beguile,
And makes him quite forget his labour an' his toil."