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   Song—A Red, Red Rose

       Robert Burns (1794)
 

 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;
 And 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’ ’twere ten thousand mile!

         Give All to Love

GIVE all to love;

Obey thy heart;

Friends, kindred, days,

Estate, good-fame,

Plans, credit, and the Muse,--

Nothing refuse.

 

'Tis a brave master;

Let it have scope:

Follow it utterly,

Hope beyond hope:

High and more high

It dives into noon,

With wing unspent,

Untold intent;

But it is a God,

Knows its own path

And the outlets of the sky.

 

It was never for the mean;

It requireth courage stout.

Souls above doubt,

Valor unbending,

It will reward,--

They shall return

More than they were,

And ever ascending.

 

Leave all for love;

Yet, hear me, yet,

One word more thy heart behoved,

One pulse more of firm endeavor,--

Keep thee to-day,

To-morrow, forever,

Free as an Arab

Of thy beloved.

 

Cling with life to the maid;

But when the surprise,

First vague shadow of surmise

Flits across her bosom young,

Of a joy apart from thee,

Free be she, fancy-free;

Nor thou detain her vesture's hem,

Nor the palest rose she flung

From her summer diadem.

 

Though thou loved her as thyself,

As a self of purer clay,

Though her parting dims the day,

Stealing grace from all alive;

Heartily know,

When half-gods go,

The gods survive.

A voice said, Look me in the stars

And tell me truly, men of earth,

 If all the soul-and-body scars

Were not too much to pay for birth.

                                                Love

XXXVI

Let me confess that we two must be twain,