Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry. 1904.

V. Cautions and Complaints

“Let not woman e’er complain”

Robert Burns (1759–1796)

LET not woman e’er complain

Of inconstancy in love;

Let not woman e’er complain

Fickle man is apt to rove;

Look abroad through Nature’s range,

Nature’s mighty law is change;

Ladies, would it not be strange

Man should then a monster prove?

Mark the winds, and mark the skies;

Ocean’s ebb and ocean’s flow;

Sun and moon but set to rise,

Round and round the seasons go.

Why then ask of silly man,

To oppose great Nature’s plan?

We ’ll be constant while we can,—

You can be no more, you know.