Songs and lyrics of Robert Burns

Chapter 80: I’M OWRE YOUNG TO MARRY YET

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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’M OWRE YOUNG TO MARRY YET

I am my mammie’s ae bairn,

Wi’ unco folk I weary, Sir;

And lying in a man’s bed,

I’m fley’d wad mak me eerie, Sir.

I’m owre young, I’m owre young,

I’m owre young to marry yet;

I’m owre young, ’twad be a sin

To tak me frae my mammie yet.

My mammie coft me a new gown,

The kirk maun hae the gracing o’t;

Were I to lie wi’ you, kind Sir,

I’m fear’d ye’d spoil the lacing o’t.

Hallowmas is come and gane,

The nights are lang in winter, Sir;

And you an’ I in ae bed,

In troth I dare na venture, Sir.

Fu’ loud and shrill the frosty wind

Blaws thro’ the leafless timmer, Sir;

But if ye come this gate again,

I’ll aulder be gin simmer, Sir.

I’m owre young, I’m owre young,

I’m owre young to marry yet;

I’m owre young, ’twad be a sin

To tak me frae my mammie yet.