101 Poems, Number 73

Favorite Poems Throughout My Life

73: “A Red, Red Rose,” 1794, by Robert Burns (1759–1796)

“O my Luve’s like a red, red rose”—

The newest lines that I

Have shoved into my aging brain,

Which (here I will not lie)

Is ever more reluctant to

Accept in its demesne

The lines I really want to learn

Before (and I’ll come clean)

I cross the line ’twixt life and death—

You all have heard of that?—

And join the elements again—

Oh, Death, you autocrat!

I learned this for my mother, who

Has, sadly, passed away.*

And she loved poems—Scotland, too!—

I wish that I could say

These words to her—they’re of a song

That Burns wrote long ago.

But that’s impossible, of course,

But, still, I’m glad I know

These lines she loved. And frequently

I’ll speak each lovely rhyme

And think about my mother’s life—

Yes, every single time.

*Prudence Osborn Dyer, 9 September 1919–10 March 2018

Link to poem.