Songs and lyrics of Robert Burns

Chapter 34: I’LL AYE CA’ IN BY YON TOWN

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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.

I’LL AYE CA’ IN BY YON TOWN

I’ll aye ca’ in by yon town,

And by yon garden green again;

I’ll aye ca’ in by yon town,

And see my bonnie Jean again.

There’s nane sall ken, there’s nane sall guess,

What brings me back the gate again,

But she, my fairest faithfu’ lass,

And stownlins we sall meet again.

She’ll wander by the aiken tree

When trystin-time draws near again;

And when her lovely form I see,

O haith, she’s doubly dear again!