There's auld Rob Morris that wons in yon glen,
He's the king o' gude fellows and wale of auld men;
He has gowd in his coffers, he has owsen and kine,
And ae bonnie lassie, his dautie and mine.

She's fresh as the morning, the fairest in May;
She's sweet as the ev'ning amang the new hay;
As blythe and as artless as the lambs on the lea,
And dear to my heart as the light to my e'e.

twilight

dwells

pick

gold, oxen

one, darling

garden

must not death

alone, ghost

describing

But oh! she's an heiress, auld Robin's a laird,

And my daddie has nought but a cot-house and yard;
A wooer like me maunna hope to come speed,

The wounds I must hide that will soon be my dead.

The day comes to me, but delight brings me nane;
The night comes to me, but my rest it is gane;
I wander my lane, like a night-troubled ghaist,
And I sigh as my heart it wad burst in my breast.

O had she but been of a lower degree,

I then might hae hoped she wad smiled upon me;
O how past descriving had then been my bliss,
As now my distraction no words can express!

O, Wert Thou in the Cauld Blast, besides being one of the most exquisite of his songs, has a pathetic interest from the circumstances under which it was composed. During the last few months of his life, a young girl called Jessie Lewars, sister of one of his colleagues in the excise, came much to his house and was of great service to Mrs. Burns and him in his last illness. One day he offered to write new verses to any tune she might play him. She sat down and played over several times the melody of an old song, beginning,

The robin came to the wren's nest,

And keekit in, and keekit in.