Songs and lyrics of Robert Burns

Chapter 116: CROWDIE EVER MAIR

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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.

CROWDIE EVER MAIR

O that I had ne’er been married,

I wad never had nae care;

Now I’ve gotten wife and bairns,

An’ they cry “crowdie!” ever mair.

Ance crowdie, twice crowdie,

Three times crowdie in a day;

Gin ye crowdie ony mair,

Ye’ll crowdie a’ my meal away.

Waefu want and hunger fley me,

Glowrin’ by the hallen en’;

Sair I fecht them at the door,

But aye I’m eerie they come ben.