Songs and lyrics of Robert Burns

Chapter 57: BONNIE LESLEY

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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.

BONNIE LESLEY

O saw ye bonnie Lesley

As she gaed o’er the border?

She’s gane, like Alexander,

To spread her conquests farther.

To see her is to love her,

And love but her for ever;

For Nature made her what she is,

And never made anither!

Thou art a queen, fair Lesley,

Thy subjects we, before thee:

Thou art divine, fair Lesley,

The hearts o’ men adore thee.

The Deil he could na scaith thee,

Or aught that wad belang thee;

He’d look into thy bonnie face,

And say, ‘I canna wrang thee.’

The Powers aboon will tent thee;

Misfortune sha’na steer thee;

Thou’rt like themselves sae lovely,

That ill they’ll ne’er let near thee.

Return again, fair Lesley,

Return to Caledonie!

That we may brag we hae a lass

There’s nane again sae bonnie.