A Red, Red Rose

By Robert Burns

“A Red, Red Rose” is Robert Burns’s 1794 love song, in which a young man compares his love to a rose and a melody and vows to love her until the seas run dry. Written in Scots and first printed in 1794, its 16 lines were shaped from older folk ballads and made to be sung, and they remain some of the best-known love lines in the language.

Our reading: the poem is a song of farewell as much as a song of love. It climbs from a single fresh image to vows that outlast the earth itself, then ends at an ordinary goodbye, and its tenderness rests on that final promise to come back.

At a Glance

Poet
Robert Burns (1759–1796)
Written
1794, reworked from older Scottish and English ballads
First published
Pietro Urbani, A Selection of Scots Songs, 1794
Collected in
The Scots Musical Museum, volume 5 (1797), set to the tune “Major Graham”
Form
Song in four ballad quatrains
Length
16 lines
Meter
Ballad meter, alternating four-beat and three-beat lines: “so FAIR art THOU, my BON-nie LASS”
Era
Romantic (Scottish)
Best-known lines
“O my Luve is like a red, red rose / That’s newly sprung in June”

ON THIS PAGE
Summary · The Poem · Background · Analysis and Themes · Form and Technique · Notable Lines · Themes · FAQ
Glossary · In Popular Culture · Related Poems

Summary

The speaker compares his love to a red rose that has just bloomed in June and to a melody played sweetly in tune. She is so lovely, he says, and he is so deeply in love, that he will love her until all the seas run dry.

He raises the promise further: he will love her until the rocks melt in the sun, for as long as life lasts. In the last stanza, he says goodbye, but only for a while. He swears he will come back to her, even if he has to travel ten thousand miles.

The Poem

Burns’s song is given here in full, in its original Scots spelling.

O my Luve is like a red, red rose
That’s newly sprung in June;
O my Luve is like the melody
That’s sweetly played in tune.

So fair art thou, my bonnie 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;
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,
Though it were ten thousand mile.

Background

Robert Burns (1759–1796), Scotland’s national poet, spent the last years of his life collecting, mending, and rewriting the traditional songs of rural Scotland. “A Red, Red Rose” is one of these. Scholars have traced its images to older popular songs and broadside ballads, including “The Turtle Dove” and “The Horn Fair Garland,” and to a farewell song attributed to a Lieutenant Hinches. Like “Auld Lang Syne,” it is best understood as Burns’s polishing of folk material into a finished song.

The song was first printed in 1794 by the Italian singer Pietro Urbani in A Selection of Scots Songs. It then appeared in 1797, the year after Burns’s death, in the fifth volume of James Johnson’s The Scots Musical Museum, set to the tune “Major Graham.” Because it was made to be sung, its plainness is deliberate: everyday words, a tune’s rise and fall, and lines built to be carried in the memory. The version most often sung today sets it to the air “Low Down in the Broom,” a pairing that became popular in 1821.

Analysis and Themes

For a poem this short and plain, “A Red, Red Rose” makes a large claim: that love can be measured against all of nature and time and still hold. It builds the claim in three steps, from an image, to a cosmic vow, to a promise that survives parting.

Love as Rose and Melody

The poem opens with two similes, not one. The rose “newly sprung in June” gives love a body: color, freshness, and a season at its peak. The melody “sweetly played in tune” gives it harmony and order, something heard rather than seen. The doubled “red, red” pushes the color past description into feeling, and “newly sprung” keeps the love young. Together, the images make the beloved both vividly alive and perfectly right.

Vows Against the Impossible

The middle stanzas trade images for oaths, and the oaths are impossible on purpose. He will love her “Till a’ the seas gang dry,” until “the rocks melt wi’ the sun,” and while “the sands o’ life shall run.” These are appeals to geological time, the slow wearing away of the whole world. By promising to love until the impossible happens, the speaker measures his feeling against the largest scale he can imagine. The plain Scots voice keeps the grand claims from sounding like empty flourish.

A Love Song That Ends in Goodbye

The last stanza turns unexpectedly to farewell: “And fare thee weel, my only luve!” Having sworn love against the end of the world, the speaker now faces an ordinary separation, and he answers it with a simple promise to return “Though it were ten thousand mile.”

The vow moves from defying time to defying distance, and the poem closes not on presence but on faith. That quiet, human promise, more than the cosmic oaths before it, is what gives the song its lasting tenderness.

Form and Technique

The poem has 16 lines in four quatrains of ballad meter, alternating lines of four beats and three beats: “so FAIR art THOU, my BON-nie LASS.” The second and fourth lines of each stanza rhyme (ABCB), as in most Scottish folk songs. Each stanza works as a complete musical phrase, light enough to carry a tune and sturdy enough to hold a vow.

Repetition does much of the work. “Red, red,” and the recurring “my dear” and “my luve,” give the lines an insistent, song-like pulse. The line “Till a’ the seas gang dry” ends the second stanza and opens the third, linking them like a refrain. The Scots words, such as “luve,” “bonnie,” “gang,” “wi’,” and “weel,” add warmth and place without clouding the meaning.

Notable Lines

Three passages carry the song from its opening image to its closing promise.

O my Luve is like a red, red rose
That’s newly sprung in June;

Lines 1 to 2

The famous opening. The doubled “red” and the month of June, when roses are at their fullest, fix love at the moment of its bloom.

Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi’ the sun;

Lines 9 to 10

The cosmic vow. Seas, rocks, and the sun measure how long the love will last, and the impossibility is exactly the measure of the feeling.

And I will come again, my luve,
Though it were ten thousand mile.

Lines 15 to 16

The closing promise. After the grand oaths, the song ends on something simpler: the certainty of return across any distance.

Themes

Four ideas run through the song, all tied to the strength of one man’s devotion.

Love and beauty. The beloved is as fresh as a June rose and as harmonious as a well-played tune.

Eternal devotion. The speaker promises a love that will outlast the seas, the rocks, and life itself.

Time. The images of drying seas and running sand set love against the slow passing of the ages.

Parting and return. The song ends in a farewell, and the promise to come back becomes the final test of the vow.

Frequently Asked Questions

These are the questions readers most often ask about Burns’s song.

What Is “A Red, Red Rose” About?

It is about a man’s deep and lasting love for a young woman. He compares her to a fresh rose and a sweet melody, vows to love her until the seas run dry, and promises to return to her even from ten thousand miles away.

Who Wrote “A Red, Red Rose”?

Robert Burns, Scotland’s national poet, wrote it in 1794. He shaped it from lines in older folk songs and ballads, as he did with many of his songs.

When Was “A Red, Red Rose” Written?

Burns wrote it in 1794, and it was first printed that year in Pietro Urbani’s A Selection of Scots Songs. It appeared in The Scots Musical Museum in 1797, after Burns’s death.

What Does the Red Rose Symbolize in the Poem?

The red rose symbolizes love at its freshest and most beautiful. “Newly sprung in June” places it at the peak of its bloom, the way the speaker’s love is young and at its height.

Is “A Red, Red Rose” a Poem or a Song?

It is both. Burns wrote it as a song to be sung to a traditional Scottish tune, and it is also read and taught as one of the best-known love poems in English.

Glossary

These Scots and older words may be new to readers meeting the dialect for the first time.

  • Luve (line 1): Love.
  • art thou (line 5): Are you.
  • bonnie lass (line 5): Beautiful young woman.
  • a’ (line 8): All.
  • gang dry (line 8): Go dry, or run dry.
  • wi’ (line 10): With.
  • o’ (line 12): Of.
  • fare thee weel (line 13): Farewell.
  • Though it were (line 16): Even if it were.

Because Burns wrote it as a song, it has had a long life in music.

Bob Dylan: In a 2008 HMV campaign, Dylan named “A Red, Red Rose” as the lyric that had the greatest effect on his creative life.

Journey to the Center of the Earth (1959): Pat Boone sang a version with new music by Jimmy Van Heusen in the film.

Recordings: The song has been recorded by the Scottish folk singer Jean Redpath, Carly Simon, Camera Obscura, and the Mediæval Bæbes, among many others.

If this song stays with you, these three measure love against time, distance, and change.

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By , Editor · Last updated September 2026