A Red, Red Rose

(2) Sea Level

Burns's "A Red, Red Rose" was once a rural or folksong common in Scotland; there aren't really any crazy words to hinder you. The ones that do look funny turn out to be odd spellings of common words ("weel" is "well," "gang" is "go"), and they give the poem a little local flavor. Even if these words seem unfamiliar at first, they're not so different from their so-called normal equivalents to really trip you up. Sure, some of Burns's poems can be a handful, but this one is not.