Robert Burns used the images of roses in some of his best-known songs (“O my luve’s like a red, red rose” . . . “A rosebud by my early walk” . . . “Wi’ lightsome heart I pu’d a rose”) and indeed wild roses spill from the hedgerows of rural Ayrshire at this time of year. Here they feature again in a little known composition from Burns’s last years. -- Lesley Duncan

Scottish Song

O bonie was yon rosy brier,
That blooms sae far frae haunt o’ man;
And bonie she, and ah, how dear!
It shaded frae the e’enin sun.

Yon rosebuds in the morning dew
How pure, amang the leaves sae green;
But purer was the lover’s vow
They witness’d in their shade yestreen.

All in its rude and prickly bower
That crimson rose how sweet and fair;
But love is far a sweeter flower
Amid life’s thorny path o’ care.

The pathless wild, and wimpling burn,
Wi’ Chloris in my arms, be mine;
And I the warld nor wish nor scorn,
Its joys and griefs alike resign.