---
title: "Inconstancy in Love"
author: "Robert Burns"
form: "Song"
year: "1794"
tune: "Duncan Gray"
location: "Dumfries"
source: "Project Gutenberg #1279 — Poems and Songs of Robert Burns"
source_url: "https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/1279/pg1279.txt"
canonical_url: "https://robert-burns.com/poems/inconstancy-in-love/"
---

# Inconstancy in Love

## Song
Let not Woman e’er complain  
Of inconstancy in love;  
Let not Woman e’er complain  
Fickle Man is apt to rove:  
Look abroad thro’ Nature’s range,  
Nature’s mighty Law is change,  
Ladies, would it not seem 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.

---

Source: [Project Gutenberg #1279 — Poems and Songs of Robert Burns](https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/1279/pg1279.txt)  
Canonical HTML: https://robert-burns.com/poems/inconstancy-in-love/