Selected for 29 December
For Robert Burns love is often sufficient shelter from even the most inclement weather. Here again, though 'winter nights were dark and rainy', the heat of a true and ardent heart takes the chill out of 'surly storms'. The calorific beauty being wooed was, alas, pledged to another. The ever opportunistic Bard admitted that he pursued her chiefly to, 'show my parts in courtship, particularly my abilities at a 'billet doux'. And at love letters, few were his equal.
Donny O'Rourke