Ae fond kiss, and then we sever;
Ae fareweel, and then forever!
In the first lines of the poem, Burns sets the scene clearly for the rest of the poem. He renders it unnecessary to delve into much detail about why the lovers are parting, where they'll both be going, or what their relationship has been like to this point. Instead, he gives a clear picture of what's happening in this specific moment: a final farewell followed by permanent parting. By setting the poem at the moment of the couple's final goodbye, he creates a feeling of urgency and momentousness. By rhyming "sever" with "forever," meanwhile, Burns stresses the permanence of the couple's farewell, conveying it through the immediacy of rhyme rather than slowing down and ruining the sense of urgency. The speaker's use of Scottish dialect ("ae" is Scottish for "one") Burns also manages to hint subtly at the poem's setting without, again, slowing its pace.
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.
Here, the speaker explores one of the poem's great concerns: the inextricabillity of love from heartache. He suggests that their meeting and their parting are not opposite actions, but are in fact equally to blame for his current situation. The phrase "Never met—or never parted" is split by a caesura, or a mid-line pause. This caesura gives equal and parallel weight to each half of the line, and as a result, positions meeting and parting as parallel processes. Meanwhile, by rhyming "kindly" and "blindly," the speaker once again suggests that the loveliness of romance is tied to its naivete. In other words, to be happily in love necessitates turning a blind eye to the eventual farewells, and one cannot exist without the other.
Thine be ilka joy and treasure,
Peace, enjoyment, love, and pleasure!
Towards the poem's end, the speaker tells his lover about all his wishes for her future. His desires for her are uncynical, without resentment or bitterness. Despite his own sadness and his sense of despair, his love is generous and selfless enough that he is able to wish his lover well. His use of an exclamation point makes these sentiments seem not only sincere, but fervent, as if his lover's future happiness is the best thing he can hope for given the inevitability of his own misery. At the same time, the abstract nature of the nouns listed here, including "joy" and "peace," convey just how much trouble the speaker has even imagining anything like true happiness. While he can express hope that his lover will experience it, he's too upset himself to picture what happiness should look like in anything but the loosest terms.
