The Book of Scottish Song/Mary Morison
Mary Morison.
[Written by Burns early in life, and afterwards sent to George Thomson, to be inserted in his collection, to the tune of "Bide ye yet." Hazlitt somewhere quotes the second stanza of this song as one of extreme beauty.]
O, Mary, at thy window be;
It is the wished, the trysted hour:
Those smiles and glances let me see
That make the miser's treasure poor.
How blytheiy wad I bide the stoure,
A weary slave from sun to sun,
Could I the rich reward secure,
The lovely Mary Morison!
Yestreen, when to the stented string
The dance gaed through the lichtit ha',
To thee my fancy took its wing—
I sat, but neither heard nor saw.
Though this was fair, and that was braw,
And yon the toast o' a' the town,
I sigh'd, and said amang them a',
Ye are na Mary Morison.
O, Mary, canst thou wreck his peace,
Wha for thy sake wad gladly dee?
Or canst thou break that heart of his,
Whase only faut is loving thee?
If love for love thou wilt na gi'e,
At least be pity to me shown,
A thocht ungentle canna be
The thocht of Mary Morison.