Explore the poem

Burns’s poem, written in rhyming couplets, explores the pain of parting and lost love and is addressed to Agnes McLehose. Between 1787 and 1788, they had engaged in a passionate correspondence, but Agnes was a married woman (although estranged from her husband) and propriety dictated that their relationship should be kept secret. In 1791, Agnes, referred to as Nancy in the poem, left Scotland to travel to Jamaica to attempt a reconciliation with her husband.

Note how the poem begins with the action of a kiss but, by the end of the line, we realise that it is not a kiss of greeting, passion or romance, but a farewell kiss. How does Burns convey the finality of this parting and the effect it is having upon him?

In spite of the despair he expresses at the end of the first stanza, he pays tribute to Nancy in the second, declaring that ‘Naething could resist my Nancy!’ Is there an element of irony in the use of ‘my’ in this line, given the sense of loss he is experiencing?

In the final stanza, Burns writes with passion but resignation and generosity, even though he talks of ‘heart-wrung tears’ and ‘sighs and groans’.

About Robert Burns

Robert Burns started life as a ploughman in Scotland but is now one of the world’s most celebrated poets. Every January, his life is remembered with whisky, haggis, singing and dancing on Burns Night.

Perhaps as a distraction from the hard physical work of his early life on the farm, his poetry, and in many ways his life, celebrated the natural world and the pleasures of living life to the full.

His first published collection of poetry was extremely successful and, by the age of twenty‑seven, he was a poet of some fame and reputation across Scotland. He began to move in more sophisticated circles, while also engaging in a number of relationships. He remained a radical thinker with a passionate belief in egalitarianism.

Burns lived only for another ten years, but poems such as ‘Auld Lang Syne’, ‘Tam O’Shanter’ and ‘A Red, Red Rose’ ensure that he remains widely read today.