---
title: "Behold, My Love, How Green the Groves"
author: "Robert Burns"
form: "Song"
year: "1794"
tune: "My lodging is on the cold ground"
location: "Dumfries"
source: "Project Gutenberg #1279 — Poems and Songs of Robert Burns"
source_url: "https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/1279/pg1279.txt"
canonical_url: "https://robert-burns.com/poems/behold-my-love-how-green-the-groves/"
---

# Behold, My Love, How Green the Groves

## Song
Behold, my love, how green the groves,  
The primrose banks how fair;  
The balmy gales awake the flowers,  
And wave thy flowing hair.

The lav’rock shuns the palace gay,  
And o’er the cottage sings:  
For Nature smiles as sweet, I ween,  
To Shepherds as to Kings.

Let minstrels sweep the skilfu’ string,  
In lordly lighted ha’:  
The Shepherd stops his simple reed,  
Blythe in the birken shaw.

The Princely revel may survey  
Our rustic dance wi’ scorn;  
But are their hearts as light as ours,  
Beneath the milk-white thorn!

The shepherd, in the flowery glen;  
In shepherd’s phrase, will woo:  
The courtier tells a finer tale,  
But is his heart as true!

These wild-wood flowers I’ve pu’d, to deck  
That spotless breast o’ thine:  
The courtiers’ gems may witness love,  
But, ’tis na love like mine.

---

Source: [Project Gutenberg #1279 — Poems and Songs of Robert Burns](https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/1279/pg1279.txt)  
Canonical HTML: https://robert-burns.com/poems/behold-my-love-how-green-the-groves/