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The Poetry of Robert Burns

Edited by William Ernest Henley and Thomas F. Henderson
Burns, Robert (1759-1796)
  
[epigraph]
  
[dedication]

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Volume I
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Volume II
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Volume III
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VOLUME IV

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118

TO ALEX. CUNNINGHAM

Ellisland in Nithsdale, July 27th, 1788

I

My godlike friend—nay, do not stare:
You think the praise is odd-like?
But ‘God is Love,’ the saints declare;
Then surely thou art god-like!

II

And is thy ardour still the same,
And kindled still in Anna?
Others may boast a partial flame,
But thou art a volcano!

III

Even Wedlock asks not love beyond
Death's tie-dissolving portal;
But thou, omnipotently fond,
May'st promise love immortal!

IV

Thy wounds such healing powers defy,
Such symptoms dire attend them,
That last great antihectic try—
Marriage perhaps may mend them.
119

V

Sweet Anna has an air—a grace,
Divine, magnetic, touching!
She takes, she charms—but who can trace
The process of bewitching?
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