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Poems and Songs of Robert Burns

Chapter 232: The Bonie Lad That’s Far Awa
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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.

The Bonie Lad That’s Far Awa

O how can I be blythe and glad, Or how can I gang brisk and braw, When the bonie lad that I lo’e best Is o’er the hills and far awa! It’s no the frosty winter wind, It’s no the driving drift and snaw; But aye the tear comes in my e’e, To think on him that’s far awa. My father pat me frae his door, My friends they hae disown’d me a’; But I hae ane will tak my part, The bonie lad that’s far awa. A pair o’ glooves he bought to me, And silken snoods he gae me twa; And I will wear them for his sake, The bonie lad that’s far awa. O weary Winter soon will pass, And Spring will cleed the birken shaw; And my young babie will be born, And he’ll be hame that’s far awa.