Analysis of "A Red, Red Rose" by Robert Burns

 Poem found here: "A Red, Red Rose" by Robert Burns

The line "A Red, Red Rose" stuck with me because it's iambic.  I remember reading this line in various sonnets and iambic poems and always wondered "how does this work, why is it iambic when you breathe out the words.

In any case, this poem is a classic love poem that hyperbolizes until beyond the end.  How much can this love endure?

It's a young love, "O my Luve's like a red, red rose / That's newly sprung in June;" note the semi-colon which means both sentences are connected, "O my Luve's like the melodie / That's sweetly play'd in tune."  Ah how lovely -- sight and sound of love (luve).

As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in luve am I:
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Til a'the seas gang dry

 I think this is a pretty direct stanza.  Love until the seas turn dry -- an apocalyptic image.  I wonder why not end the poem there, at the end.

Til a'the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi' the sun:
I will luve thee still, my dear,
While the sands o'life shall run

So love goes beyond the end.  Beyond any sort of physical existence.  I do like the image of rocks melting into non-existence.  But why not end there?

And fare thee well, my only Luve
And fare thee well, a while!
And I will come again, my Luve,
Tho' it were ten thousand mile.

 Another life, the speaker would love the same person again.  This is a type of poem I'd expect someone who just fell in love and can't find the right words.  By using big images with a stifling language, there's a sense of youth and innocence with these lines.  Yeah, I'll love you forever even we just met.  

I think back to the idea of "a red, red rose."  It seems like a phrase someone found on accident that would work iambically.  But it's hard to find those types of lines on purpose or to overthink.  I think this poem goes both ways -- a poem pushed by the momentum of emotion and just feels the ideas and lines.