Famous Poets and Poems:  Home  |  Poets  |  Poem of the Month  |  Poet of the Month  |  Top 50 Poems  |  Famous Quotes  |  Famous Love Poems

Back to main page Search for:


FamousPoetsAndPoems.com / Poets / Robert Burns / Poems
Biography
Poems
Quotes
Books
Popular Poets
Langston Hughes

Shel Silverstein

Pablo Neruda

Maya Angelou

Edgar Allan Poe

Robert Frost

Emily Dickinson

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

E. E. Cummings

Walt Whitman

William Wordsworth

Allen Ginsberg

Sylvia Plath

Jack Prelutsky

William Butler Yeats

Thomas Hardy

Robert Hayden

Amy Lowell

Oscar Wilde

Theodore Roethke

All Poets  

See also:

Poets by Nationality

African American Poets

Women Poets

Thematic Poems

Thematic Quotes

Contemporary Poets

Nobel Prize Poets

American Poets

English Poets

Robert Burns Poems
Back to Poems Page
203. Sylvander to Clarinda by Robert Burns
WHEN dear Clarinda, 1 matchless fair,
First struck Sylvander’s raptur’d view,
He gaz’d, he listened to despair,
Alas! ’twas all he dared to do.


Love, from Clarinda’s heavenly eyes,
Transfixed his bosom thro’ and thro’;
But still in Friendships’ guarded guise,
For more the demon fear’d to do.


That heart, already more than lost,
The imp beleaguer’d all perdue;
For frowning Honour kept his post—
To meet that frown, he shrunk to do.


His pangs the Bard refused to own,
Tho’ half he wish’d Clarinda knew;
But Anguish wrung the unweeting groan—
Who blames what frantic Pain must do?


That heart, where motley follies blend,
Was sternly still to Honour true:
To prove Clarinda’s fondest friend,
Was what a lover sure might do.


The Muse his ready quill employed,
No nearer bliss he could pursue;
That bliss Clarinda cold deny’d—
“Send word by Charles how you do!”


The chill behest disarm’d his muse,
Till passion all impatient grew:
He wrote, and hinted for excuse,
’Twas, ’cause “he’d nothing else to do.”


But by those hopes I have above!
And by those faults I dearly rue!
The deed, the boldest mark of love,
For thee that deed I dare uo do!


O could the Fates but name the price
Would bless me with your charms and you!
With frantic joy I’d pay it thrice,
If human art and power could do!


Then take, Clarinda, friendship’s hand,
(Friendship, at least, I may avow;)
And lay no more your chill command,—
I’ll write whatever I’ve to do.SYLVANDER.


Note 1. A grass-widow, Mrs. M’Lehose. [back]
View Robert Burns:  Poems | Quotes | Biography | Books

Home   |   About Project   |   Privacy Policy   |   Copyright Notice   |   Links   |   Link to Us   |   Tell a Friend   |   Contact Us
Copyright © 2006 - 2010 Famous Poets And Poems . com. All Rights Reserved.
The Poems and Quotes on this site are the property of their respective authors. All information has been
reproduced here for educational and informational purposes.