Ae Fond Kiss

‘Ae Fond Kiss’ (1791) is a love poem by the famous Scottish poet Robert Burns (1759–1796) intended to be set to music. Robert Burns sent this poem to his lover Agnes Maclehose (1759–1841) in December 1791 as a farewell gift before Agnes left Scotland for the West Indies to reunite with her estranged husband. We will explore the poem’s context, meaning, language devices, imagery, and key themes.

The context of ‘Ae Fond Kiss’

'Ae Fond Kiss' is a popular Scottish song written by Robert Burns, one of Scotland's most celebrated poets. It was composed in 1791 and set to music by various composers. The context of this poem is deeply personal, as it was penned as a farewell letter to Agnes 'Nancy' McLehose, with whom Burns had a passionate but ultimately doomed affair. The poem reflects Burns' deep emotional turmoil and longing, expressing the pain of parting and unfulfilled love.

Biographical context

Agnes Maclehose (1759-1841) was a well-educated woman from Glasgow who separated from her husband in 1780. Robert Burns met Agnes at a tea party in Edinburgh in 1787 after a friend arranged the meeting. The two hit it off right away and started writing letters to each other. To keep their letters confidential, Agnes suggested they use the nicknames ‘Sylvander’ and ‘Clarinda’ when writing to each other. She was religious and also legally still married.

Their letters don’t suggest their relationship was sexual but show that they were in love for a time. Their letters also show that Burns wanted their relationship to become more than just a loving friendship, but from as early as the fifth letter exchanged between them (dated 16th December 1787), Agnes wasn’t having it:

In a previous letter, Robert Burns had written to Agnes in what she termed a ‘romantic style’. He had celebrated their friendship and suggested that if they had met earlier, their friendship would have led ‘God of love only knows where’. In the quote above, Agnes tells Robert Burns off for writing this, reminding him that it is not proper to write to a married woman in a romantic way.

Why did these lovers part?

In 1788, Robert Burns left Edinburgh and married an old lover of his called Jean Armour (1765–1834), who had, by this time, already become pregnant by him with twins twice. Burns’ departure to marry Jean in 1788 and Agnes’ maid giving birth to Burns’ child in that same year impacted his relationship with Agnes.

In 1792, Agnes left Scotland for the West Indies to reunite with her estranged husband. She arrived in Jamaica to find that her husband had another family, so she returned to Scotland, but her relationship with Robert Burns had faded. In 1791, when Burns learned of Agnes’ plan to go to the West Indies, and knowing he would never see her again, he sent her ‘Ae Fond Kiss’ as a parting gift. In 1831, Agnes looked back on their parting in her diary:

Literary context

The first two lines of 'Ae Fond Kiss' were inspired by a verse from 'The Parting Kiss' (1749) written by the less successful English poet and publisher Robert Dodsley:

Publication

Throughout her life, Agnes Maclehose kept tight control over the letters she wrote to Robert Burns, though many of the letters Burns wrote to Agnes were published after Burns’ death in Letters to Clarinda &c. (1802). After Agnes’ death, her grandson published The Correspondence Between Burns and Clarinda (1843), which included letters written by both Burns and Agnes. The letter Burns wrote in December 1791 when he learned of Agnes’ planned departure is the 66th letter in the collection. It contains three ‘songs’, the first being ‘Ae Fond Kiss’. The letter ends with:

Other love poems to Agnes Maclehose

Agnes Maclehose was the inspiration for ten of Robert Burns’ love poems.

In ‘Sylvander to Clarinda’ (1787), we see that Robert Burns wanted more than friendship:

In ‘Clarinda, Mistress of my Soul’ (1788), we see how saying goodbye to Agnes, even for a short while, affected Robert Burns:

Fig. 1 - Robert Burn's poem 'Ae Fond Kiss' features powerful imagery such as the 'fond kiss' to express his pain of parting from his beloved.

‘Ae Fond Kiss’: poem

Review the poem in its entirety below.

'Ae Fond Kiss' Full Poem

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Ae fond kiss, and then we sever; Ae fareweel, and then forever! Deep in heart-wrung tears I’ll pledge thee, Warring sighs and groans I’ll wage thee. Who shall say that Fortune grieves him, While the star of hope she leaves him? Me, nae cheerful twinkle lights me; Dark despair around benights me. I’ll ne’er blame my partial fancy, Naething could resist my Nancy: But to see her was to love her; Love but her, and love for ever. Had we never lov’d sae kindly, Had we never lov’d sae blindly, Never met – or never parted – We had ne’er been broken-hearted. Fare thee weel, thou first and fairest! Fare thee weel, thou best and dearest! Thine be ilka joy and treasure, Peace, Enjoyment, Love and Pleasure! Ae fond kiss, and then we sever! Ae fareweel, alas, for ever! Deep in heart-wrung tears I’ll pledge thee, Warring sighs and groans I’ll wage thee.

'Ae Fond Kiss': analysis

The song 'Ae Fond Kiss' by Robert Burns is an eloquent expression of deep affection and tragic separation. The analysis of this poem reveals the profound emotional depth of Burns' writing. He uses heartfelt and moving language to convey the sorrow of parting with a loved one. The recurring theme of the kiss, used as a symbol of their love and affection, underscores the raw emotion and personal experience that fuels the poem. Burns' use of Scottish dialect adds an additional layer of authenticity and cultural context to the work, thereby making it a significant piece in the canon of Scottish literature.

Scots Language

What do the words written in the Scots language in ‘Ae Fond Kiss’ mean?

• ‘Ae’ means ‘only’ or ‘one’.
• ‘Fareweel’ means ‘goodbye’ (farewell).
• ‘Nae’ (line 7) means ‘no’.
• ‘Naething’ (line 10) means ‘nothing’.
• ‘Sae’ (lines 13 and 14) means ‘so’.
• ‘Ilka’ (line 19) means ‘every’.

Form

'Ae Fond Kiss': poetic devices

The main poetic devices to consider for the poem 'Ae Fond Kiss' are the meter, rhyming couplets, caesura, anaphora, repetition, epistrophe, and end-stopped lines.

Meter

The poem is written in trochaic tetrameter. This regular rhythm helps with setting the poem to music and makes the speaker’s goodbye feel calm and composed. This meter also leaves an unstressed syllable at the end of each line (called a feminine ending), so each line seems to fade away right at the end, which is rather fitting for the last goodbye.

Rhyming Couplets

Rhyming couplets give the poem a regular form so it could be set to music, as was Burns’ intention. A rhyming couplet also allows the speaker to explore one idea in two different ways, emphasising his feelings.

Caesura

The first two lines of the poem contain caesuras (the comma before ‘and’ in both lines). These caesuras heighten the impact of our realisation that this one loving kiss is actually their final parting kiss, that this goodbye is actually their last.

Anaphora

Lines one and two both start with ‘Ae’ to emphasise that it is just one kiss. Lines 13 and 14 both start with ‘Had we never lov’d sae’ to emphasise the depth of their love and how it has intensified their heartbreak. Lines 17 and 18 both start with ‘Fare thee weel, thou’ to emphasise the speaker’s fond but sorrowful goodbye and to prolong it.

Repetition

The repetition created by anaphora in the poem makes setting the poem to music easier. Using anaphora creates a consistent regular rhythm.

Parallel syntax (the repetition of grammatical structures) in lines 17 and 18 with ‘thou first and fairest’ and ‘thou best and dearest’ also helps with setting the poem to music, expands the speaker’s ideas, and emphasises his feelings for her by highlighting the superlatives (‘best’, ‘dearest’, ‘fairest’).

The slight change from ‘and then forever’ to ‘alas, forever!’ in the third stanza’s repetition of lines one and two shows us that by the end of the poem, the realisation that this is their last goodbye really hits home for the speaker.

Epistrophe

Lines five to eight present the idea of hope (and a lack of it). Repeating ‘him’ and ‘me’ at the end of these two pairs of rhyming couplets connects these lines and emphasises the difference between the speaker and other men. Other men have hope of a bright future in their relationship, while the speaker doesn’t.

End-stopped lines

The poem uses full stops, question marks, and exclamation marks at the end of grammatical sentences, which means that these lines are end-stopped. A full grammatical sentence (one complete idea) is contained in each rhyming couplet, except in the second stanza, where complete grammatical sentences extend over two rhyming couplets.

Using end-stopped lines in rhyming couplets makes it easier to set the poem to music. It also brings a sense of calm to the speaker’s ideas because each idea reaches a definitive end. There is no panic or wildly running emotion in the speaker’s words, emphasising the finality and tenderness of their goodbye, as well as the certainty of the speaker’s feelings.

'Ae Fond Kiss': Language devices

The main language devices to analyse 'Ae Fond Kiss' are the speaker, tone, and imagery.

Speaker

The speaker uses first-person speech to directly address Nancy (‘me’, ‘I’ll’, ‘thee’, ‘thou’), emphasising the personal nature of this poem, which was sent directly to Agnes Maclehose in a private letter. Robert Burns doesn’t call Agnes ‘Clarinda’ in this poem as he normally did in his letters but instead fondly calls her by her pet name, ‘my Nancy’. This emphasises how personal and heartfelt the poem is.

Tone

The poem has a tender tone of quiet grief. At the end of the first stanza, though the speaker is surrounded by ‘Dark despair’, there’s no whirlwind of emotion overcoming the poet, as suggested by the regular rhythm, end-stopped lines, and consistent pattern of rhyming couplets in the poem. The third stanza uses many exclamation marks as the poet says a fond farewell to Nancy and wishes her happiness for the future, but the despair those exclamation marks might suggest doesn’t run out of control as the poem continues in its regular pattern.

Imagery

In 'Ae Fond Kiss', Robert Burns uses powerful and evocative imagery to express the depth of his emotions and the pain of parting from his beloved. One of the key images is the 'fond kiss' itself, symbolizing their intimate connection and the painful severing of their relationship.

• Light and dark

  • In lines seven and eight, Burns contrasts light and dark to emphasise how little happiness he has left, knowing they must separate forever. He has no bright, sparkly happiness left, only ‘dark despair’.

  • The word ‘benights’ from line eight is associated with the darkness of night catching up on a traveller before they have reached the shelter. Despair ‘benights’ the speaker in line eight, emphasising how overpowering his sorrow is.

• Physical beauty

  • In lines nine to 12, the speaker compliments Nancy’s physical beauty, saying that just one look at her would make anyone fall madly in love.

  • In line 17, the speaker describes Nancy as the ‘fairest’ (most beautiful).

• Eternity

  • In the first two lines of the poem, the finality of their goodbye is emphasised by the caesura before ‘and then forever’. When these two lines are repeated for emphasis in the third stanza, there is a slight change as that phrase becomes ‘alas, forever!’. With the emphatic ‘alas’ and the exclamation mark, ‘forever’ really hits home for the speaker.

• Expressions of grief

  • The speaker repeats in stanzas one and three that he will honour her memory in his ‘heart-wrung tears’ and ‘groans’. Looking back on his happy memories with her, he ‘sighs’. These suggestions of verbal and physical expressions of grief emphasise the depth of his sadness.