The Book of Scottish Song/Polwarth on the Green

Polwarth on the Green.

[Burns says this song was written by a Captain John Drummond M'Gregor of the family of Bochaldie, but he must have been misinformed. The first four and the last four lines are old; the rest was added by Ramsay, and the whole is given in the first vol. of the Tea-Table Miscellany. "Polwarth," says Mr. Robert Chambers, "is a small primitive-looking parish-village in the centre of Berwickshire, with a green, in the centre of which three thorns grow within a little enclosure. These trees are the successors of one aged thorn, which, after keeping its place there for centuries, was blown down some years ago. It was formerly the custom of the villagers, who are a simple race, and were formerly vassals to the Earl of Marchmont, whose seat is in the neighbourhood, to dance round this venerable tree at weddings; which they are said to have done in consequence of a romantic incident in the history of the noble family just mentioned."]

At Polwarth, on the green,
If you'll meet me the morn,
Where lads and lasses do convene
To dance around the thorn;
A kindly welcome you shall meet
Fra her, wha likes to view
A lover and a lad complete,
The lad and lover you.

Let dorty dames say Na,
As lang as e'er they please,
Seem caulder than the snaw,
While inwardly they bleeze;
But I will frankly shaw my mind,
And yield my heart to thee—
Be ever to the captive kind,
That langs na to be free.

At Polwarth, on the green,
Amang the new-mawn bay,
With sangs and dancing keen
We'll pass the live-lang day.
At nicht, if beds be ower thrang laid,
And thou be twined of thine,
Thou shalt be welcome, my dear lad,
To take a part of mine.

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