Six Excellent New Songs (Edinburgh)/The Yellow Hair'd Laddie

by Allan Ramsay

For other versions of this work, see The Yellow Hair'd Laddie.

The Yellow Hair'd Laddie

In April when primroses paint the sweet plain,
And summer approaching rejoiceth the swain:
The yellow-hair'd laddie would oftentimes go,
To wilds and deep gleens where the hawthorn trees grow.

 There under the shade of an old sacred thorn
With freedom he sung his loves oveding and morn,
He sang with so soft and enchanting a sound,
That sylvans and fairies unseen danc'd around.

 The shepherd thus sung: Tho young Mary be fair,
Her beauty is dash'd with a sornfull proud air;
But Susie was handsome, and sweetly could sing;
Her breath like the breezes, perfum'd in the spring.

 That Maddie in all the gay bloom of her youth,
Like the moon was inconstant and never spoke truth
But Susie was faithfull good humour'd and free,
And fair as the goddess that sprung from the seae.

 That mamma's fine daughter with al her great dow'r
Was aukwardly airy, and frequently sour,
The sighing, he wish'd, would parents agree,
The witty sweet Susie, his mistress miht be.