A Red, Red Rose

The first-person speaker (who, given the poem’s historical context, readers can assume is male) opens the poem by comparing his love to various objects. At first, the speaker uses a simile to compare his “Luve” to “a red, red rose” (Line 1). Roses, especially red roses, have been long associated with love. Various Greek myths featuring gods and goddesses such as Eros and Aphrodite associate the flower with devotion and love. The red rose was also the symbol for the House of Lancaster, the Tudors. Since the War of the Roses, the civil war between the House of Lancaster and the House of York, “the term ‘English rose’ [is] commonly used to describe a naturally pretty brunette with porcelain-like fair skin, flushed cheeks and pink lips” (“How the Red Rose Became the Ultimate Symbol of Love.” Appleyard London, 2022). Shakespeare also often used the rose as a symbol or means of description in his writing. In Burns’s poem, the rose also symbolizes youth. The speaker specifically compares his love to a red rose “newly sprung in June” (Line 2). He associates these feelings of love with new life and novelty. In the second half of the first stanza, the speaker continues to describe his love with another simile. This time, he compares his love to a “melody” (Line 3). As with the rose symbolism, music is often associated with love and passion. A historical overview of music shows that “love ballads emerged in the 8th-century tunes of medieval Arab female slaves in Spain” and then in the “12th-century European troubadours spread their songs of longing” (Chilton, Martin. “Deconstructing the Love Song: How and Why Love Songs Work.” udiscovermusic, 2021). Burns’s speaker compares his love to music that is “sweetly played in tune” (Line 4). Through this comparison, the speaker depicts his love as uncomplicated, smooth, and pleasant. The lover and beloved are equally in love with one another.

In the second stanza, the speaker continues to promote his feelings of love. He argues for the veracity and grandeur of his emotions expressed in the first stanza. The speaker is justified in feeling this much love because his “bonnie lass” is “so fair” (Line 5). Here, readers learn the speaker’s intended audience (a “bonnie lass”). The speaker uses the beauty of his beloved to measure the vastness of his love: The speaker’s love is as “deep” (Line 6) as his beloved is “fair” (Line 5). The beloved’s attractiveness is equal and perfectly correlated to the lover’s passion. The speaker continues to express the endlessness of his love by using hyperbole to exaggerate his emotions. He will love his “dear” (Line 7) until all of the “seas gang dry” (Line 8). In effect, the speaker asserts that he will be true to his beloved until the oceans dry up: an impossibility. Since the oceans will not dry up, the speaker essentially claims that he will be in love forever.

As the third stanza opens, the speaker repeats this hyperbole. In addition to repeating how he will love his “dear” (Line 9) until all of the “seas gang dry” (Line 9), the speaker extends this to include another hyperbole. He won’t just love his “bonnie lass” until the oceans dry up, but until the “rocks melt wi’ the sun” (Line 10), another seeming impossibility. As if not wanting to push his exaggerations too far or seem disingenuous, the speaker ends the third stanza with a more simplistic representation of his feelings. He blatantly claims that his will love his significant other “still” (Line 11), or continuously, as “the sands o’ life shall run” (Line 12), just as sands run through an hourglass. This last statement is contradictory to the endlessness and vastness related earlier in the previous stanzas. The oceans may never dry up, and the rocks may never melt, but sands in an hourglass eventually run out. There is some temporality regarding life and love.

The “bonnie lass” recipient of the address may receive a shock in the fourth stanza when the speaker alludes to his impending absence, saying goodbye to his “only luve” (Line 13). The word “only” points to the exclusivity (and, traditionally speaking, purity) of his love, the constancy of the lover for his beloved. He exclaims twice in the first half of the final stanza “fare thee well” (Lines 13, 14). However, in the second instance, the speaker adds “awhile” (Line 14) after this salutation, implying that their separation will only temporary. This notion is further expressed in the following line when the speaker implies his return. He states definitely that he “will come again, my luve” (Line 15). Returning to hyperbole, the speaker asserts that he will come back to his beloved even if they are separated “ten thousand mile” (Line 16). No matter the distance, the lover will always find his way back to his beloved. While the poem does contain instances of simple, passionate declarations, the speaker largely uses exaggeration and comparisons to iterate the extent of his devotion.