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Poems and Songs of Robert Burns cover

Poems and Songs of Robert Burns

Chapter 297: I Gaed A Waefu’ Gate Yestreen
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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.

I Gaed A Waefu’ Gate Yestreen

I gaed a waefu’ gate yestreen, A gate, I fear, I’ll dearly rue; I gat my death frae twa sweet een, Twa lovely een o’bonie blue. ’Twas not her golden ringlets bright, Her lips like roses wat wi’ dew, Her heaving bosom, lily-white— It was her een sae bonie blue. She talk’d, she smil’d, my heart she wyl’d; She charm’d my soul I wist na how; And aye the stound, the deadly wound, Cam frae her een so bonie blue. But “spare to speak, and spare to speed;” She’ll aiblins listen to my vow: Should she refuse, I’ll lay my dead To her twa een sae bonie blue.