Songs and lyrics of Robert Burns

Chapter 9: GO FETCH TO ME A PINT O’ WINE

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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.

GO FETCH TO ME A PINT O’ WINE

Go fetch to me a pint o’ wine,

An’ fill it in a silver tassie;

That I may drink, before I go,

A service to my bonnie lassie.

The boat rocks at the pier o’ Leith,

Fu’ loud the wind blaws frae the ferry,

The ship rides by the Berwick-law,

And I maun leave my bonnie Mary.

The trumpets sound, the banners fly,

The glittering spears are rankèd ready;

The shouts o’ war are heard afar,

The battle closes thick and bloody;

But it’s no the roar o’ sea or shore

Wad mak me langer wish to tarry;

Nor shout o’ war that’s heard afar,

It’s leaving thee, my bonnie Mary.