Alexander Scott

Alexander Scott Poems

Alexander Scott Biography

Alexander Scott (1520 - 1584) was a Scottish poet. He is believed to have spent most of his time in or near Edinburgh. Thirty-six short poems are attributed to him, including Ane New Yeir Gift to Quene Mary, The Rondel of Love, and a satire, Justing at the Drum. According to an older view , "he has great variety of metre, and is graceful and musical, but his satirical pieces are often extremely coarse." According to the modern viewpoint of the Dictionary of National Biography, "Because of its range, explicitness, and open-endedness, Scott's work has been described as ethically incoherent, but recent revisions of such essentialist readings have restored his multilayered texts as attractively complex poems, an appealing alternative to contemporary English poetry as anthologized in Tottel's Miscellany (1557).")

The Best Poem Of Alexander Scott

A Bequest Of His Heart

Hence, heart, with her that must depart,
And hald thee with thy soverane!
For I had liever want ane heart,
Nor have the heart that dois me pain.
Therefore, go, with thy love remain,
And let me leif thus unmolest;
And see that thou come not again,
But bide with her thou luvis best.

Sen she that I have servit lang
Is to depart so suddenly,
Address thee now, for thou sall gang
And bear thy lady company.
Fra she be gone, heartless am I,
For quhy? thou art with her possest.
Therefore, my heart, go hence in high,
And bide with her thou luvis best.

Though this belappit body here
Be bound to servitude and thrall,
My faithful heart is free entier
And mind to serve my lady at all.
Would God that I were perigall
Under that redolent rose to rest!
Yet at the least, my heart, thou sall
Abide with her thou luvis best.

Sen in your garth the lily quhyte
May not remain amang the laif,
Adieu the flower of whole delite!
Adieu the succour that may me saif!
Adieu the fragrant balme suaif,
And lamp of ladies lustiest!
My faithful heart she shall it haif
To bide with her it luvis best.

Deploir, ye ladies cleir of hue,
Her absence, sen she must depart!
And, specially, ye luveris true
That wounded bene with Luvis dart.
For some of you sall want ane heart
As well as I; therefore at last
Do go with mine, with mind inwart,
And bide with her thou luvis best!

Alexander Scott Comments