Poems and Songs of Robert Burns

Chapter 353: Thou Fair Eliza

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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.

Thou Fair Eliza

Turn again, thou fair Eliza! Ae kind blink before we part; Rue on thy despairing lover, Can’st thou break his faithfu’ heart? Turn again, thou fair Eliza! If to love thy heart denies, Oh, in pity hide the sentence Under friendship’s kind disguise! Thee, sweet maid, hae I offended? My offence is loving thee; Can’st thou wreck his peace for ever, Wha for thine would gladly die? While the life beats in my bosom, Thou shalt mix in ilka throe: Turn again, thou lovely maiden, Ae sweet smile on me bestow. Not the bee upon the blossom, In the pride o’ sinny noon; Not the little sporting fairy, All beneath the simmer moon; Not the Minstrel in the moment Fancy lightens in his e’e, Kens the pleasure, feels the rapture, That thy presence gies to me.