Robert Burns

Poor Mailie’s Elegy

LAMENT in rhyme, lament in prose,
Wi’ saut tears tricklin’ down your nose;
Our bardie’s fate is at a close,
    Past a’ remead;
The last sad cape-stane of his woes-
    Poor Mailie’s dead!

It’s no the loss o’ warl’s gear
That could sae bitter draw the tear,
Or mak our bardie, dowie, wear
    The mourning weed:
He’s lost a friend and neibor dear
    In Mailie dead.

Thro’ a’ the toun she trotted by him;
A lang half-mile she could descry him;
Wi’ kindly bleat when she did spy him,
    She ran wi’ speed:
A friend mair faithfu’ ne’er cam nigh him
    Than Millie dead.

I wat she was a sheep o’ sense,
An’ could behave hersel wi’ mense;
I’ll say’t, she never brak a fence
    Thro’ thievish greed.
Our bardie, lanely, keeps the spence
    Sin’ Mailie’s dead.

Or, if he wanders up the howe,
Her living image in her yowe
Comes bleating to him, owre the knowe,
    For bite o’ bread,
An’ down the briny pearls rowe
    For Mailie dead.

She was nae get o’ moorland tups,
Wi’ tawted ket, an’ hairy hips:
For her forbears were brought in ships
    Frae yont the Tweed:
A bonnier fleesh ne’er cross’d the clips
    Than Millie’s, dead.

Wae worth the man wha first did shape
That vile wanchancie thing-a rape!
It maks guid fellows girn an’ gape,
    Wi’ chokin’ dread;
An’ Robin’s bonnet wave wi’ crape
    For Mailie dead.

O a’ ye bards on bonnie Doon!
An’ wha on Ayr your chanters tune!
Come, join the	melancholious croon
    O’ Robin’s reed;
His heart will never get aboon
    His Mailie dead!