Robert Burns (1759-1796)

One of the glories of English poetry, or poetry in English, is the short lyric. There are thousands of them, and some of them, like this one, are excellent. A memorable statement of a commonplace idea which is not undermined by the knowledge that the poet probably got bored of the original addressee and tried the poem out on someone else.

When Richard Tottel printed the first anthology of poetry in English, in 1557, he was almost apologetic about publishing short poems. When poetry was conscripted into the university at the beginning of the twentieth century, the professional critic needed something to write about, and it is far easier to write 40.000 words on the implication of water imagery in the waste land than it is to say anything clever about ‘A red red Rose’. So the short lyric tends to be absent in the classroom.

But its strength lies in its ability to state the well-known and familiar in strikingly memorable ways. When done well it is the most immediately pleasurable of poems. The excellent ones sing themselves.