Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Robert Burns (1759–1796). Poems and Songs.
The Harvard Classics. 1909–14.

122 . The Lass o’ Ballochmyle

’TWAS even—the dewy fields were green,

On every blade the pearls hang;

The zephyr wanton’d round the bean,

And bore its fragrant sweets alang:

In ev’ry glen the mavis sang,

All nature list’ning seem’d the while,

Except where greenwood echoes rang,

Amang the braes o’ Ballochmyle.

With careless step I onward stray’d,

My heart rejoic’d in nature’s joy,

When, musing in a lonely glade,

A maiden fair I chanc’d to spy:

Her look was like the morning’s eye,

Her air like nature’s vernal smile:

Perfection whisper’d, passing by,

“Behold the lass o’ Ballochmyle!”

Fair is the morn in flowery May,

And sweet is night in autumn mild;

When roving thro’ the garden gay,

Or wand’ring in the lonely wild:

But woman, nature’s darling child!

There all her charms she does compile;

Even there her other works are foil’d

By the bonie lass o’ Ballochmyle.

O, had she been a country maid,

And I the happy country swain,

Tho’ shelter’d in the lowest shed

That ever rose on Scotland’s plain!

Thro’ weary winter’s wind and rain,

With joy, with rapture, I would toil;

And nightly to my bosom strain

The bonie lass o’ Ballochmyle.

Then pride might climb the slipp’ry steep,

Where frame and honours lofty shine;

And thirst of gold might tempt the deep,

Or downward seek the Indian mine:

Give me the cot below the pine,

To tend the flocks or till the soil;

And ev’ry day have joys divine

With the bonie lass o’ Ballochmyle.