BURNS enthusiasts can find pleasure in his love poetry; his poems of nature and of democratic idealism; his patriotic or satirical pieces. Here is one of his loveliest love poems-cum-songs, which I learnt for a Burns competition in Troon primary school many years ago. A Burns poem and song were each year committed to children’s blotting-paper minds, ensuring that a dozen or so of the poet’s compositions were lodged there in some form for the rest of their lives. Learning by rote may be currently unfashionable, but how wonderful to draw on such a resource from memory!

MARY MORISON

O Mary, at thy window be,

It is the wish’d, the trysted hour;

Those smiles and glances let me see,

That make the miser’s treasure poor:

How blythely wad I bid the stoure,

A weary slave frae sun to sun;

Could I the rich reward secure,

The lovely Mary Morison!

Yestreen when to the trembling string

The dance gaed through the lighted ha’,

To thee my fancy took its wing,

I sat, but neither heard, nor saw:

Though this was fair, and that was braw,

And yon the toast of a’ the town,

I sigh’d, and said amang them a’,

‘Ye are na Mary Morison.’

O Mary, canst thou wreck his peace,

Wha for thy sake wad gladly die!

Or canst thou break that heart of his,

Whase only faute is loving thee!

If love for love thou wilt na gie,

At least be pity to me shown;

A thought ungentle canna be

The thought o’ Mary Morison,