The Book of Scottish Song/Banks o' Doon 2
Banks o' Doon.
[Second Version, written by Burns for Johnson's Museum. The following account of the air is given by the Poet, in a letter to Mr. Thomson, dated Nov. 1794: "There is an air, The Caledonian Hunt's Delight, to which I wrote a song that you will find in Johnson—Ye banks and braes o' bonnie Doon. This air, I think, might find a place among your hundred, as Lear says of his knights. Do you know the history of the air? It is curious enough. A good many years ago, Mr. James Miller, writer in your good town, was in company with our friend Clarke: and talking of Scottish music, Miller expressed an ardent ambition to be able to compose a Scots air. Mr. Clarke, partly by way of joke, told him to keep to the black keys of the harpsichord, and preserve some kind of rhythm, and he would infallibly compose a Scots air. Certain it is, that, in a few days, Mr. Miller produced the rudiments of an air, which Mr. Clarke, with some touches and corrections, fashioned into the tune in question."]
Ye banks and braes o' bonnie Doon,
How can ye bloom sae fresh and fair!
How can ye chant, ye little birds,
And I sae weary, fu' o' care!
Thou'lt break my heart, thou warbling bird,
That wantons through the flowering thorn;
Thou minds me o' departed joys,
Departed never to return.
Oft ha'e I roved by bonnie Doon,
To see the rose and woodbine twine;
And ilka bird sang o' its love,
And fondly sae did I o' mine.
Wi' lightsome heart I pu'd a rose,
Fu' sweet upon its thorny tree;
But my fause lover stole my rose,
And ah! he left the thorn wi' me.