POOR MAILIE'S ELEGY. Robert Burns Alexander Huber Editor Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford
Broad Street Oxford OX1 3BG UK
Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive
Taylor Institution Library St Giles' Oxford OX1 3NA UK info@eighteenthcenturypoetry.org https://www.eighteenthcenturypoetry.org/
Oxford This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. T91548 Burns, Robert, 1759-1796. POEMS, CHIEFLY IN THE SCOTTISH DIALECT, BY ROBERT BURNS. Kilmarnock printed by John Wilson, M,DCC,LXXXVI. 1786 pp. 66-68. 240p.; 8⁰.

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POOR MAILIE'S ELEGY . LAMENT in rhyme , lament in prose , Wi' saut tears trickling down your nose ; Our Bardie's fate is at a close , Past a' remead ! The last , sad cape-stane of his woes ; Poor Mailie's dead ! It's no the loss o' warl's gear , That could sae bitter draw the tear , Or make our Bardie , dowie , wear The mourning weed He's lost a friend and neebor dear , In Mailie dead . Thro' a' the town she trotted by him ; A lang half-mile she could descry him ; Wi' kindly bleat , when she did spy him , She ran wi' speed : A friend mair faithfu' ne'er came nigh him , Than Mailie dead . I wat she was a sheep o' sense , An' could behave hersel wi' mense : I'll say't , she never brak a fence , Thro' thievish greed . Our Bardie , lanely , keeps the spence Sin' Mailie's dead . Or , if he wanders up the howe , Her living image in her yowe , Comes bleating till him , owre the knowe , For bits o' bread ; An' down the briny pearls rowe For Mailie dead . She was nae get o' moorlan tips , Wi' tauted ket , an' hairy hips ; For her forbears were brought in ships , Frae' yont the TWEED A bonier fleesh ne'er cross'd the clips Than Mailie's dead . Wae worth that man wha first did shape , That vile , wanchancie thing — a raep ! It maks guid fellows girn an' gape , Wi' chokin dread ; An' Robin's bonnet wave wi' crape For Mailie dead . O , a' ye Bards on bonie DOON ! An' wha on AIRE your chanters tune ! Come , join the melancholious croon O' Robin's reed ! His heart will never get aboon ! His Mailie's dead !