18 pages • 36 minutes read

Highland Mary

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1792

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Form and Meter

Burns’s “Highland Mary” has a relatively simple poetic structure. The poem has four stanzas of eight lines each, and each stanza contains some variant of the poem’s refrain in its final line. Each stanza also follows an abcbdefe rhyme scheme. The meter, while somewhat unusual, is consistent from stanza to stanza. Every other line varies from iambic tetrameter—8 syllables of alternating unstressed and stressed syllables—to iambic heptameter—7 syllables of alternating unstressed and stressed syllables.

The poem is also characterized by a number of contractions—like “bloom’d” (Line 9), “clasp’d” (Line 12), “o’er” (Line 14), “fu’” (Line 18), and “lo’ed” (Line 30)—and exclamation marks. This writing style generates a lively and energetic feeling, despite the poem’s somber subject matter, and, coupled with the consistent rhyme scheme and meter, matches “Highland Mary” with the melody of its intended musical accompaniment.

Anaphora

In poetry, anaphora is the deliberate repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive lines. During his description of the surroundings of Castle Montgomery in southern Ayrshire, Burns uses anaphora in the second stanza. When recalling the summer he spent with his love, he states, “How sweetly bloom’d the gay, green birk, / How rich the hawthorn’s blossom” (Lines 9-10). In his grief and nostalgia for the past, Burns idealizes everything about his experience with Mary, including their natural environment. By using anaphora, Burns demonstrates his inability to express just how beautiful Ayrshire is in his memory. He must repeat himself and restate just how “rich” and how “sweetly” the trees around him blossomed and bloomed to approximate the highlands’ idyllic beauty in his description.

Refrain

Burns concludes each of the four stanzas in “Highland Mary” with a variation of the refrain “my Highland Mary.” In addition to lending the poem its song-like rhythm, this refrain also demonstrates the gradual shift in Burns’s feelings over time. In the first two stanzas, Burns concludes the final lines with the phrase “my sweet Highland Mary.” In these stanzas, Burns is recalling the “green” and “fair” (Line 3) trees and flowers near Castle Montgomery where he first romanced Mary. Since he is remembering the idyllic time they spent together, he correspondingly remembers her as “sweet.” However, as the poem approaches Mary’s death, the sweetness of the memory comes to an end. Instead, the refrain now evokes the “cauld” (Line 23) or cold clay that “wraps my Highland Mary” (Line 24). By the poem’s conclusion, Burns resolves that Mary shall not be confined to the cold ground, but in his “bosom’s core / Shall live my Highland Mary” (Lines 31-32). Although his relationship with Mary did not end as “sweetly” as it began, Burns still clings to the memory and cherishes her. The repetition of the possessive pronoun “my” and the nickname “Highland Mary” each time Burns mentions Mary Campbell in the refrain illustrate the couple’s once intimate familiarity and Burns’s strong, possessive feelings towards her.