Annotation:Ae Fond Kiss

The melody was originally "Rory Dall's Port," a triple time tune taken from Oswald (and which some say was Oswald's own) and used by Robert Burns for his song of the above name. Rory Dall was an ancient harper, originally from Ulster, who composed and played primarily in Scotland. Emmerson (Rantin' Pipe and Tremblin' String, 1971) notes the tune is of the character of the ancient 'ports' of the harp, a slow Gaelic air, rather than the vulgarly termed 'Scottish Waltz.' Burns composed the heartfelt words, which he set to the tune, in 1791, just after the departure of the young and beautiful Calrinda, Mrs. M'Lehose, who was journeying to Jamaica to meet her husband. Clarinda and the poet were warm friends who had met soon after Burns' poems were first published, and the two were "obviously attracted to one another."

Glad we never love sae kindly

Had we never loved sae blindly

Never met--or never parted

We had ne'er been broken-hearted.

Burns' words were in fact an adaptation or remolding of the poem "One Kind Kiss before we Part" by Robert Dodsley, and English butler who had risen to be a poet, playwright and major literary publisher, and whose lines were set to music by James Oswald (1710-1769).