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Home  »  library  »  poem  »  Highland Mary

C.D. Warner, et al., comp.
The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

Highland Mary

By Robert Burns (1759–1796)

YE banks and braes and streams around

The castle o’ Montgomery,

Green be your woods, and fair your flowers,

Your waters never drumlie!

There Simmer first unfald her robes,

And there the langest tarry;

For there I took the last fareweel

O’ my sweet Highland Mary.

How sweetly bloomed the gay green birk,

How rich the hawthorn’s blossom!

As underneath their fragrant shade,

I clasped her to my bosom!

The golden hours, on angel wings,

Flew o’er me and my dearie;

For dear to me as light and life

Was my sweet Highland Mary.

Wi’ mony a vow and locked embrace

Our parting was fu’ tender;

And, pledging aft to meet again,

We tore oursel’s asunder;

But oh! fell Death’s untimely frost,

That nipt my flower sae early!

Now green’s the sod and cauld’s the clay

That wraps my Highland Mary!

Oh pale, pale now those rosy lips,

I aft hae kissed so fondly!

And closed for aye the sparkling glance,

That dwelt on me sae kindly;

And moldering now in silent dust

That heart that lo’ed me dearly!

But still within my bosom’s core

Shall live my Highland Mary.