Poem by Robert Burns

* * *

  MARK yonder pomp of costly fashion
    Round the wealthy titled bride:
  But when compar’d with real passion,
    Poor is all that princely pride.
    What are their showy treasures?
    What are their noisy pleasures?
The gay gaudy glare of vanity and art:
    The polish’d jewel’s blaze
    May draw the wond’ring gaze,
    And courtly grandeur bright
    The fancy may delight,
But never never can come near the heart.

  But did you see my dearest Chloris,
    In simplicity’s array;
  Lovely as yonder sweet opening flower is,
    Shrinking from the gaze of day.
    O then, the heart alarming,
    And all resistless charming,
In Love’s delightful fetters she chains the willing soul!
    Ambition would disown
    The world’s imperial crown;
    Even Avarice would deny
    His worshipp’d deity,
And feel thro’ every vein Love’s raptures roll.

1. I Gaed a Waefu' Gate Yestreen
2. Blythe Was She
3. Farewell to Ballochmyle
4. Stay My Charmer
5. On a Bank of Flowers

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