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Songs and lyrics of Robert Burns

Chapter 7: THE BIRKS OF ABERFELDY
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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 BIRKS OF ABERFELDY

Now simmer blinks on flowery braes,
And o’er the crystal streamlet plays,
Come let us spend the lightsome days
In the Birks of Aberfeldy.
Bonnie lassie, will ye go,
Will ye go, will ye go,
Bonnie lassie, will ye go
To the Birks of Aberfeldy?
While o’er their heads the hazels hing,
The little birdies blythely sing,
Or lightly flit on wanton wing
In the Birks of Aberfeldy.
The braes ascend like lofty wa’s
The foaming stream deep-roaring fa’s,
O’erhung wi’ fragrant spreading shaws—
The Birks of Aberfeldy.
The hoary cliffs are crown’d wi’ flowers,
White o’er the linns the burnie pours,
And rising, weets wi’ misty showers
The Birks of Aberfeldy.
Let fortune’s gifts at random flee,
They ne’er shall draw a wish frae me,
Supremely blest wi’ love and thee,
In the Birks of Aberfeldy.
Bonnie lassie, will ye go,
Will ye go, will ye go,
Bonnie lassie, will ye go
To the Birks of Aberfeldy?