The Book of Scottish Song/Handsome Nell

Handsome Nell.

[Tune, "I am a man unmarried."—"The following composition," says Burns, in his Commonplace Book, "was the first of my performances, and done at an early period of my life, when my heart glowed with honest warm simplicity, unacquainted and uncorrupted with the ways of a wicked world. The performance is, indeed, very puerile and silly, but I am always pleased with it, as it recalls to my mind those happy days when my heart was yet honest, and my tongue was sincere. The subject of it was a young girl, who really deserved all the praises I have bestowed on her. I not only had this opinion of her then—but I actually think so still, now that the spell is long since broken, and the enchantment at an end."—"This ballad," says Lockhart, "though characterised by Burns as a very puerile and silly performance, contains here and there lines of which he need hardly have been ashamed at any period of his life."]

O, once I loved a bonnie lass,
Ay, and I love her still;
And whilst that vurtue warms my breast
I'll love my handsome Nell.

As bonnie lasses I ha'e seen,
And mony full as braw,
But for a modest gracefu' mien
The like I never saw.

A bonnie lass, I will confess,
Is pleasant to the e'e,
But without some better qualities
She's no a lass for me.

But Nelly's looks are blithe and sweet,
And what is best of a',
Her reputation is complete,
And fair without a flaw.

She dresses aye sae clean and neat,
Both decent and genteel;
And then there's something in her gait
Gars ony dress look weel.

A gaudy dress and gentle air
May slightly touch the heart,
But it's innocence and modesty
That polishes the dart.

'Tis this in Nelly pleases me,
'Tis this enchants my soul;
For absolutely in my breast
She reigns without control.

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