Had we never lov’d sae kindly, / Had we never lov’d sae blindly, / Never met—or never parted, / We had ne’er been broken-hearted.

Burns wrote the song in 1791 as a farewell to Agnes McLehose, whom he addressed as Clarinda, when she was about to leave Scotland for the West Indies. The last quatrain is the part of the song most often quoted on its own.