“Poetry begins to atrophy when it gets too far from music.”~Ezra Pound

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.

As fair art thou, my bonie 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!
O I will luve thee still, my Dear,
While the sands o’ life shall run.

And fare thee weel, my only Luve,
And fare thee weel a while!
And I will come again, my Luve,
Tho’ it were ten thousand mile!

Robbie Burns, by all acccounts, had more than one “only luve”, but that doesn’t keep this love poem from being terribly romantic and eternally popular. Burns was mostly homeschooled by his father as a child, and later, self-taught.

Burns referred to “A Red, Red Rose” as a “simple old Scots song which I had picked up in the country.”

When asked for the source of his greatest creative inspiration, singer songwriter Bob Dylan selected Burns’s 1794 song “A Red, Red Rose”, as the lyric that had the biggest effect on his life.

June is, by the way, National Rose Month.

For more poetry on this Friday, check out Poetry Friday, hosted today at The Art of Irreverence.