Songs and lyrics of Robert Burns

Chapter 73: UP IN THE MORNING

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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.

UP IN THE MORNING

Up in the morning’s no’ for me,

Up in the morning early;

When a’ the hills are covered wi’ snaw,

I’m sure it’s winter fairly.

Cauld blaws the wind frae east to wast,

The drift is driving sairly;

Sae loud and shrill’s I hear the blast,

I’m sure it’s winter fairly.

The birds sit chittering in the thorn,

A’ day they fare but sparely;

And lang’s the night frae e’en to morn,

I’m sure it’s winter fairly.