Poems and Songs of Robert Burns

Chapter 53: Fragment—The Mauchline Lady

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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.

Fragment—The Mauchline Lady

Tune—“I had a horse, I had nae mair.”

When first I came to Stewart Kyle, My mind it was na steady; Where’er I gaed, where’er I rade, A mistress still I had aye. But when I came roun’ by Mauchline toun, Not dreadin anybody, My heart was caught, before I thought, And by a Mauchline lady.