Oh Unforgotten And Only Lover

Oh, unforgotten and only lover,

Many years have swept us apart,

But none of the long dividing seasons

Slay your memory in my heart.

In the clash and clamour of things unlovely

My thoughts drift back to the times that were,

When I, possessing thy pale perfection,

Kissed the eyes and caressed the hair.

Other passions and loves have drifted

Over this wandering, restless soul,

Rudderless, chartless, floating always

With some new current of chance control.

But thine image is clear in the whirling waters–

Ah, forgive–that I drag it there,

For it is so part of my very being

That where I wander it too must fare.

Ah, I have given thee strange companions,

To thee–so slender and chaste and cool–

But a white star loses no glimmer of beauty

In all the mud of a miry pool

That holds the grace of its white reflection;

Nothing could fleck thee, nothing could stain,

Thou hast made a home for thy delicate beauty

Where all things peaceful and lovely reign.

Doubtless the night that my soul remembers

Was a sin to thee, and thine only one.

Thou thinkest of it, if thou thinkest ever,

As a crime committed, a deed ill done.

But for me, the broken, the desert-dweller,

Following Life through its underways,–

I know if those midnights thou hadst not granted

I had not lived through these after days.

And that had been well for me; all would say so,

What have I done since I parted from thee?

But things that are wasted, and full of ruin,

All unworthy, even of me.

Yet, it was to me that the gift was given,

No greater joy have the Gods above,–

That night of nights when my only lover,

Though all reluctant, granted me love.

For thy beauty was mine, and my spirit knows it,

Never, ah, never my heart forgets,

One thing fixed, in the torrent of changing,

Faults and follies and fierce regrets.

Thine eyes and thy hair, that were lovely symbols

Of that white soul that their grace enshrined,

They are part of me and my life for ever,

In every fibre and cell entwined.

Men might argue that having known thee

I had grown faithful and pure as thee,

Had turned at the touch of thy grace and glory

From the average pathways trodden by me.

Hadst thou been kinder or I been stronger

It may be even these things had been–

But one thing is clear to my soul for ever,

I owe my owning of thee to sin.

Had I been colder I had not reached thee,

Besmirched the ermine, beflecked the snow–

It was only sheer and desperate passion

That won thy beauty in years ago.

And not for the highest virtues in Heaven,

The utmost grace that the soul can name,

Would I resign what the sin has brought me,

Which I hold glory, and thou–thy shame.

I talk of sin in the usual fashion,

But God knows what is a sin to me–

We love more fiercely or love more faintly–

But I doubt if it matters how these things be.

The best and the worst of us all sink under–

What I held passion and thou held’st lust–

What name will it find in a few more seasons,

When we both dissolve in an equal dust?

If a God there be, and a God seems needed

To make the beauty of things like thee,

He doubtless also, some careless moment,

Mixed the forces that fashioned me.

Also He, for His own good reason–

Though I care little how these things are–

Gave me thee, in those few brief midnights,

And that one solace He never can mar.

Ah me, the stars of such varying heavens

Have watched me, under such alien skies,

Lay thy beauty naked before me

To soothe and solace my world-worn eyes.

For one good gift to me has been given–

A memory accurate, clear and keen,

That holds the vision, perfect for ever

In charm and glory, of things once seen.

So I hold thee there, and my fancy wanders

To each known beauty and blue-veined place,

I know how each separate eyelash trembles,

And every shadow that sweeps thy face.

And this is a joy of which none can rob me,

This is a pleasure that none can mar–

As sweet as thou wert, in that long past midnight,

Even as lovely my memories are.

Ah, unforgotten and only lover,

If ever I drift across thy thought,

As even a vision unloved, unlovely,

May cross the fancy, uncalled, unsought,

When the years that pass thee have shown, in passing,

That my love, _in its strength at least_, was rare–

Wilt thou not think–ah, hope of the hopeless–

E’en as thou wouldst not, thou wilt not–care!

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Poems in English 

• Robert Burns: Epitaph For James Smith: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: Epitaph On John Dove, Innkeeper: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: To A Mouse, On Turning Her Up In Her Nest With The Plough: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: Halloween: The following poem will, by many readers, be well enough understood; but for the sake of those who are unacquainted with the manners and traditions of the country where the scene is cast, notes are added to give some account of the principal charms and spells of that night, so big with prophecy to the peasantry in the west of Scotland. The passion of prying into futurity makes a striking part of the history of human nature in its rude state, in all ages and nations; and it may be some entertainment to a philosophic mind, if any such honour the author with a perusal, to see the remains of it among the more unenlightened in our own.-R.B. by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: Farewell To Ballochmyle: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: Young Peggy Blooms: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: Second Epistle to Davie: A Brother Poet by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: Masonic Song: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: Lines On Meeting With Lord Daer: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: Address To The Toothache: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: Farewell Song To The Banks Of Ayr: “I composed this song as I conveyed my chest so far on my road to Greenock, where I was to embark in a few days for Jamaica. I meant it as my farewell dirge to my native land.”-R. B. by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: O Thou Dread Power: Lying at a reverend friend’s house one night, the author left the following verses in the room where he slept:- by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: Epigram On Rough Roads: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: Fragment Of Song: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: The Brigs Of Ayr: Inscribed to John Ballantine, Esq., Ayr. by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: Reply To A Trimming Epistle Received From A Tailor: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: Willie Chalmers: Mr. Chalmers, a gentleman in Ayrshire, a particular friend of mine, asked me to write a poetic epistle to a young lady, his Dulcinea. I had seen her, but was scarcely acquainted with her, and wrote as follows:- by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: Nature’s Law – A Poem: Humbly inscribed to Gavin Hamilton, Esq. by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: The Calf: To the Rev. James Steven, on his text, Malachi, ch. iv. vers. 2. “And ye shall go forth, and grow up, as Calves of the stall.” by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: Thomson’s Edward and Eleanora.: by Robert Burns

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