Arts Outdoors

A Scottish Farmer’s Love Song

A Scottish Farmer’s Love Song

Stephanie Sipp, illustrator

The Literary Gardener

By Carol Howard

If you’re searching for an old-fashioned love poem that calls forth the rugged beauty of the great outdoors, consider this enduring favorite: “O My Luve’s Like a Red, Red Rose.” In four simple yet elegant verses, Robert Burns conveys a lover’s passion through imagery drawn from a cottage garden and from the sublime vistas of the southwestern Scottish coast.

One might offer these romantic verses to a fiancé along with a bouquet, and the “bonnie lass” of the poem can easily be changed to a “lad” if the beloved is a man. The poem is also suitable for a wedding ceremony, especially one with a Scottish theme. (Floral designers, though, should consider that the national flowers of Scotland are thistle and a species of white rose, rather than red.)

Today, the title line of Burns’ poem has become so familiar that a reader might be inclined to dismiss it as a dusty cliché. The idea that love (or “luve” in Scots dialect) is like a rose seems commonplace. But when the lyrics of this poem are set to a melody and sung—as Burns intended them to be—they form a graceful folk classic. Besides, the deep affection that the speaker of the poem experiences is compared not to any rose but to one “that’s newly sprung in June.” This fresh love begins a new season of life.

To fully appreciate the lyrics, one should listen to a few of the many recordings of it by modern folk singers. Although the poem has been set to a number of different melodies through the years, the standard pairing today is with a traditional tune called “Low Down in the Broom.” In a soulful rendition, the lover’s claim to “luve thee still, my dear, till a’ the seas gang dry” has a quiet intensity.

Burns wrote many original poems, but he was also a central figure in the late 18th-century effort to collect and publish traditional Scottish lyrics and melodies that might otherwise have been lost. Like many of his poetic lyrics, those of “The Red, Red Rose” were drawn from songs he heard at home and in the surrounding countryside. He felt free to use the lyrics he gathered as he saw fit, borrowing lines and altering them to suit his poetic ear.

Burns was, in fact, uniquely positioned to represent in poetry the landscape of rural Scotland and to record the voices of its people. For much of his life, he was a poor, but decently educated, tenant farmer who knew first-hand how unyielding the Scottish soil of that era could be. Still, he loved the land and drew his inspiration from it: “I walk out, sit down now & then, look out for objects in Nature around me that are in unison or harmony with the cogitations of my fancy & workings of my bosom.”

Even though he read English literature and eventually befriended prominent men in Edinburgh, Burns remained proud of his rural heritage. He made sure to infuse his love songs, along with his many other poems, with hints of his native Scots dialect. In doing so, he secured his lasting reputation as Scotland’s national poet.

Carol Howard is Dean of the Faculty at Warren Wilson College. Located on more than 1,100 acres near Asheville, the college offers innovative educational programs ranging from Sustainable Agriculture and Ecological Forestry to Traditional Music of Appalachia. To listen to several versions of “A Red, Red Rose,” visit the website Editing Robert Burns for the 21st Century.

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