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.
Jenny’s a’ wat, poor body;
Jenny’s seldom dry;
She draiglet a’ her petticoatie,
Coming through the rye.
Coming through the rye, poor body,
Coming through the rye,
She draiglet a’ her petticoatie,
Coming through the rye.
Gin a body meet a body
Coming through the rye;
Gin a body kiss a body,
Need a body cry?
Gin a body meet a body
Coming through the glen;
Gin a body kiss a body,
Need the world ken?