Songs and lyrics of Robert Burns

Chapter 125: THE BRAES O’ BALLOCHMYLE

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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.

THE BRAES O’ BALLOCHMYLE

The Catrine woods were yellow seen,

The flowers decayed on Catrine lee,

Nae lav’rock sang on hillock green,

But nature sickened on the e’e.

Thro’ faded groves Maria sang,

Hersel in beauty’s bloom the whyle,

And aye the wild-wood echoes rang,

‘Fareweel the braes o’ Ballochmyle!

‘Low in your wintry beds, ye flowers,

Again ye’ll flourish fresh and fair;

Ye birdies dumb, in withering bowers,

Again ye’ll charm the vocal air.

But here, alas! for me nae mair

Shall birdie charm, or floweret smile;

Fareweel, the bonnie banks of Ayr,

Fareweel, fareweel, sweet Ballochmyle!’

Thro’ faded groves Maria sang,

. . . . . . . .

Fareweel the braes o’ Ballochmyle.