The Book of Scottish Song/The Bonnie Scot

The Bonnie Scot.

[This is one of Ramsay's songs in the Tea Table Miscellany. It was written to a tune called "The Boatman," which resembles much the old air, "Nancy's to the greenwood gane." "There is a tradition," says Mr. Chambers, "mentioned by the Rev. James Hall, in his Travels through Scotland, [2 vols. 1807,] that the early song upon which Ramsay founded the above, was composed on the preference which Mary of Guise gave to our James V., as a husband, over the English Henry VIII."]

Ye gales, that gently wave the sea,
And please the canny boat-man,
Bear me frae hence, or bring to me
My brave, my bonnie Scot-man.
In haly bands we joined our hands,
Yet may not this discover,
While parents rate a large estate
Before a faithfu' lover.

But I loor chuse, in Highland glens
To herd the kid and goat, man,
Ere I could, for sic little ends,
Refuse my bonnie Scot-man.
Wae worth the man, wha first began
The base ungenerous fashion,
Frae greedy views love's art to use,
While strangers to its passion!

Frae foreign fields, my lovely youth,
Haste to thy longing lassie,
Who pants to press thy balmy mouth,
And in her bosom hause thee.
Love gi'es the word; then, haste on board;
Fair winds and tenty boat-man,
Waft o'er, waft o'er, frae yonder shore,
My blythe, my bonnie Scot-man.

---