"Ae Fond Kiss" is a lyric poem written by Robert Burns in which a speaker addresses his lover on the occasion of their permanent parting. It was first published in the fourth volume of the series Scots Musical Museum, published by James Johnson, in 1792. Tonally dramatic and mournful, the poem is thought to be autobiographical: it was written by Burns to a mistress prior to her 1971 departure from Scotland to Jamaica. The poem is composed of three stanzas of eight lines each, following an AABBCCDD rhyme scheme. Throughout, the speaker explores not only his feelings of love and sadness, but also the uncomfortable fact that his love is precisely what has enabled his sadness, rendering the two states of being inseparable.
Robert Burns, sometimes called a proto-Romantic poet, here takes on his subject matter through a typically Romantic lens, focusing on intense feeling and the speaker's subjectivity. Burns is also known as one of Scotland's most iconic writers, and in many poems—including this one—he opts to use a blend of standard English and Scots-influenced dialect. "Ae Fond Kiss" is among his more famous poems, and is popular as a song as well as in its written form.
