Lament in rhyme, lament in prose,Wi' saut tears trickling down your nose,Our Bardie's fate is at a close,Past a' remeadǃThe last sad cap-stane of his woes,Poor Mailie's dead!
It's no the loss o' world's gearThat could sae bitter draw a tear,Or mak our Bardie, dowie, wearThe mourning weed;He's lost a friend and neibour dear,In Mailies dead.
Thro a' the town she trotted by him:A lang half-mile she could descry himWi' kindly bleat, when she did spy him,She ran wi' speed:A friend mair faithfu' ne'er cam nigh himThan Mailie dead.
I wat she was a sheep o' sense,And cou'd behave hersel wi' mense;I'll say't, she never brak a fence,Thro' thievish greed.Our Bardie, lanely, keeps the spenceSin' Mailie's dead.
Or, if he wanders up the howe,Iler living image in her yowe,Comes bleating to him, owre the knowe,For bits o' bread;And down the briny pearls rowe,For Mailie dead
She was nae get o' moorland tips,Wi' tawted kit, and hairy hips;For her forbears were brought in shipsFrae yont the Tweed:A bonnier flesh ne'er cross'd the clipsThan Mailie's dead.
Wae worth the man that first did shapeThat vile wanchansie thing-a rapeIt maks gude fellows girn and gape,Wi' chunkin dread!And Robin's bannet wave wi' crape,For Mailie dead,
O a' ye bards on bonny Doon,And wha on Ayr your chaunters tune,Come join your melancholy croonO Robin's reed;His heart will never get aboon,His Mailie's dead!
Divider from 'The Beauties of Burn's Poems' a chapbook printed in Falkirk in 1819
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