Robert Burns 1759-96

Burns was born on Jan 25 1759 in Alloway, Ayrshire, the eldest of seven children of a gardener who was determined that his son should have as good an education as poosible in their straitened circumstances.   The young Burns read avidly-he was well versed in the classics-and began to write poetry as a schoolboy.    With the publication of his poetry in 1786, he was invited to Edingburgh where he was lionised by fashionable society, and through his association with the Scots Musical Museum he came to write the words of many of the traditional scottish songs known today.  An inverterate womaniser, he maried Jean Armour in 1786 but continuted to have affairs and fathere a number of children outside wedlock.  He died on July 221 1796, of heart disease brought on by rheumatic fever. 

A Red, Red Rose

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'  it were ten thousand mile!