Language and style

In this part of the study guide, we will address the language and style of the poem “A Red, Red Rose” by Robert Burns for you to better understand its meaning.

Playing with the language

The poem “A Red, Red Rose” relies heavily on wordplay. As we have already mentioned in the previous section, Characters and narrator, love becomes a character which is depicted through intense metaphors; “the seas gang dry” (l. 8) is one of the several metaphors related to the end of the world.

Tense of the verbs

The poem mostly relies on present tense (simple and perfect) and future tense. Present tense is used in order to describe the fact that the speaker’s love is eternal, just like the beauty of roses or like love songs:

“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.” (ll. 1-4)

Future tense is also employed in order to suggest the eternal aspect of the speaker’s love. He promises that he will love his “bonnie lass” (l. 5) for eternity until the world will end and even after that:

“Till a’ the ...