WeRead Powered by ReaderPub

Songs and lyrics of Robert Burns cover

Songs and lyrics of Robert Burns

Chapter 79: LAST MAY A BRAW WOOER

By Robert Burns

Open in WeRead

Explore more books like this:

British Literature Classics of Literature Poetry

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.

LAST MAY A BRAW WOOER

Last May a braw wooer cam down the lang glen,

And sair wi’ his love he did deave me:

I said there was naething I hated like men—

The deuce gae wi’m to believe me, believe me,

The deuce gae wi’m to believe me.

He spak o’ the darts in my bonnie black een,

And vow’d for my love he was dying;

I said he might die when he liked for Jean:

The Lord forgie me for lying, for lying,

The Lord forgie me for lying!

A weel-stockèd mailen, himsel’ for the laird,

And marriage aff-hand were his proffers:

I never loot on that I kend it, or car’d;

But thought I might hae waur offers, waur offers,

But thought I might hae waur offers.

But what wad ye think? in a fortnight or less,

The deil tak his taste to gae near her!

He up the lang loan to my black cousin Bess,

Guess ye how, the jad! I could bear her, could bear her,

Guess ye how, the jad! I could bear her.

But a’ the niest week as I fretted wi’ care,

I gaed to the tryst o’ Dalgarnock;

And wha but my fine fickle lover was there?

I glowr’d as I’d seen a warlock, a warlock.

I glowr’d as I’d seen a warlock.

But owre my left shouther I gae him a blink,

Lest neebors might say I was saucy;

My wooer he caper’d as he’d been in drink,

And vow’d I was his dear lassie, dear lassie,

And vow’d I was his dear lassie.

I spier’d for my cousin fu’ couthy and sweet,

Gin she had recover’d her hearin’,

And how her new shoon fit her auld shachl’t feet—

But, heavens! how he fell a swearin’, a swearin’,

But, heavens! how he fell a swearin’.

He beggèd for Gudesake I wad be his wife,

Or else I wad kill him wi’ sorrow:

So e’en to preserve the poor body in life,

I think I maun wed him to-morrow, to-morrow,

I think I maun wed him to-morrow.