XCI.
Reading edition
I GAED A WAEFU’ GATE YESTREEN.
Air—“The blue-eyed lass.”
[This blue-eyed lass was Jean Jeffry, daughter to the minister of Lochmaben: she was then a rosy girl of seventeen, with winning manners and laughing blue eyes. She is now Mrs. Renwick, and lives in New York.]
I.
I gaed a waefu’ gate yestreen, A gate, I fear, I’ll dearlie rue; I gat my death frae twa sweet een, Twa lovely een o’ bonnie blue. ’Twas not her golden ringlets bright; Her lips, like roses, wat wi’ dew, Her heaving bosom, lily-white— It was her een sae bonnie blue.
II.
She talk’d, she smil’d, my heart she wyl’d; She charm’d my soul—I wist na how: And ay the stound, the deadly wound, Cam frae her een sae bonnie blue. But spare to speak, and spare to speed; She’ll aiblins listen to my vow: Should she refuse, I’ll lay my dead To her twa een sae bonnie blue.