Songs and lyrics of Robert Burns

Chapter 15: IT WAS A’ FOR OUR RIGHTFU’ KING

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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.

IT WAS A’ FOR OUR RIGHTFU’ KING

It was a’ for our rightfu’ King,

We left fair Scotland’s strand;

It was a’ for our rightfu’ King,

We e’er saw Irish land,

My dear,

We e’er saw Irish land.

Now a’ is done that men can do,

And a’ is done in vain;

My love and native land farewell,

For I maun cross the main,

My dear,

For I maun cross the main.

He turn’d him right and round about

Upon the Irish shore;

And gae his bridle-reins a shake,

With adieu for evermore,

My dear,

Adieu for evermore.

The sodger from the wars returns,

The sailor frae the main;

But I hae parted frae my love,

Never to meet again,

My dear,

Never to meet again.

When day is gane, and night is come,

And a’ folk boune to sleep,

I think on him that’s far awa’,

The lee-lang night, and weep,

My dear,

The lee-lang night, and weep.