---
title: "To John Ballantyne"
author: "Robert Burns"
recipient: "John Ballantyne"
letter_number: 42
roman: "XLII"
date: "January 1787"
source: "Project Gutenberg #18500 — The Complete Works of Robert Burns (ed. Allan Cunningham)"
editor: "Allan Cunningham"
source_url: "https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/18500/pg18500.txt"
canonical_url: "https://robert-burns.com/letters/042-to-john-ballantyne/"
---

# To John Ballantyne

## Editor's note
I have not hesitated to insert all letters which show what Burns was musing on as a poet, or planning as a man.

— Allan Cunningham

## Letter
While here I sit, sad and solitary by the side of a fire in a little country inn, and drying my wet clothes, in pops a poor fellow of sodger, and tells me he is going to Ayr. By heavens! say I to myself, with a tide of good spirits which the magic of that sound, Auld Toon o' Ayr, conjured up, I will sent my last song to Mr. Ballantyne. Here it is—

Ye flowery banks o' bonnie Doon, How can ye blume sae fair; How can ye chant, ye little birds, And I sae fu' o' care![166]

## Footnotes
166. Song CXXXI.

---

Source: [Project Gutenberg #18500 — The Complete Works of Robert Burns (ed. Allan Cunningham)](https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/18500/pg18500.txt), edited by Allan Cunningham  
Canonical HTML: https://robert-burns.com/letters/042-to-john-ballantyne/