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Poems and Songs of Robert Burns

Chapter 119: Song—My Highland Lassie, O
By Robert Burns
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About This Book

The collection assembles lyrical songs, narrative poems, satirical pieces, epistles, epitaphs, and fragments that shift between convivial drinking verses, tender laments, and comic storytelling. Many lyrics were shaped to traditional airs and preserve vernacular speech, while longer works portray rural labor, domestic scenes, and compassionate encounters with animals. Satire targets religious hypocrisy and social pretension, and several poems take a direct, personal tone of moral reflection or affectionate address. The selections alternate moods and forms, emphasizing melodic phrasing and a versatile technical range.

Song—My Highland Lassie, O

Tune—“The deuks dang o’er my daddy.”
Nae gentle dames, tho’ e’er sae fair, Shall ever be my muse’s care: Their titles a’ arc empty show; Gie me my Highland lassie, O. Chorus.—Within the glen sae bushy, O, Aboon the plain sae rashy, O, I set me down wi’ right guid will, To sing my Highland lassie, O. O were yon hills and vallies mine, Yon palace and yon gardens fine! The world then the love should know I bear my Highland Lassie, O. But fickle fortune frowns on me, And I maun cross the raging sea! But while my crimson currents flow, I’ll love my Highland lassie, O. Altho’ thro’ foreign climes I range, I know her heart will never change, For her bosom burns with honour’s glow, My faithful Highland lassie, O. For her I’ll dare the billow’s roar, For her I’ll trace a distant shore, That Indian wealth may lustre throw Around my Highland lassie, O. She has my heart, she has my hand, By secret troth and honour’s band! Till the mortal stroke shall lay me low, I’m thine, my Highland lassie, O. Farewell the glen sae bushy, O! Farewell the plain sae rashy, O! To other lands I now must go, To sing my Highland lassie, O.