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Poems and Songs of Robert Burns

Chapter 512: My Nanie’s 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.

My Nanie’s Awa

Tune—“There’ll never be peace till Jamie comes hame.”
Now in her green mantle blythe Nature arrays, And listens the lambkins that bleat o’er her braes; While birds warble welcomes in ilka green shaw, But to me it’s delightless—my Nanie’s awa. The snawdrap and primrose our woodlands adorn, And violetes bathe in the weet o’ the morn; They pain my sad bosom, sae sweetly they blaw, They mind me o’ Nanie—and Nanie’s awa. Thou lav’rock that springs frae the dews of the lawn, The shepherd to warn o’ the grey-breaking dawn, And thou mellow mavis that hails the night-fa’, Give over for pity—my Nanie’s awa. Come Autumn, sae pensive, in yellow and grey, And soothe me wi’ tidings o’ Nature’s decay: The dark, dreary Winter, and wild-driving snaw Alane can delight me—now Nanie’s awa.