Songs and lyrics of Robert Burns

Chapter 111: MY AIN KIND DEARIE O

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About This Book

A collected selection of the poet's songs and shorter lyrics presents his explorations of love, nature, rural Scottish life, patriotism, and social observation, often rendered in Scots dialect and intended for musical performance. The volume groups brief pieces alongside several longer poems, supplies a glossary of dialect terms and an index of first lines, and includes illustrative plates. Many lyrics evoke landscapes, domestic scenes, and communal gatherings, balancing tenderness and satire while varying tone from celebratory to elegiac. The arrangement favors lyrical vitality rather than strict chronology, offering readers both popular airs and more extended narrative poems within a single accessible anthology.

MY AIN KIND DEARIE O

When o’er the hill the eastern star

Tells bughtin-time is near, my jo;

And owsen frae the furrow’d field

Return sae dowf and wearie O;

Down by the burn, where scented birks

Wi’ dew are hanging clear, my jo,

I’ll meet thee on the lea-rig,

My ain kind dearie O.

In mirkest glen, at midnight hour,

I’d rove, and ne’er be eerie O,

If thro’ that glen I gaed to thee,

My ain kind dearie O.

Altho’ the night were ne’er sae wild,

And I were ne’er sae wearie O,

I’d meet thee on the lea-rig,

My ain kind dearie O.

The hunter lo’es the morning sun,

To rouse the mountain deer, my jo;

At noon the fisher seeks the glen,

Along the burn to steer, my jo;

Gie me the hour o’ gloamin grey,

It maks my heart sae cheery O,

To meet thee on the lea-rig,

My ain kind dearie O.