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Poems and Songs of Robert Burns

Chapter 302: A Waukrife Minnie
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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.

A Waukrife Minnie

Whare are you gaun, my bonie lass, Whare are you gaun, my hinnie? She answered me right saucilie, “An errand for my minnie.” O whare live ye, my bonie lass, O whare live ye, my hinnie? “By yon burnside, gin ye maun ken, In a wee house wi’ my minnie.” But I foor up the glen at e’en. To see my bonie lassie; And lang before the grey morn cam, She was na hauf sae saucie. O weary fa’ the waukrife cock, And the foumart lay his crawin! He wauken’d the auld wife frae her sleep, A wee blink or the dawin. An angry wife I wat she raise, And o’er the bed she brocht her; And wi’ a meikle hazel rung She made her a weel-pay’d dochter. O fare thee weel, my bonie lass, O fare thee well, my hinnie! Thou art a gay an’ a bonnie lass, But thou has a waukrife minnie.