---
title: "Blythe Was She"
author: "Robert Burns"
form: "Song"
year: "1787"
tune: "Andro and his Cutty Gun"
location: "Edinburgh"
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/blythe-was-she/"
---

# Blythe Was She

## Song
*Chorus*  
Blythe, blythe and merry was she,  
Blythe was she but and ben;  
Blythe by the banks of Earn,  
And blythe in Glenturit glen.

By Oughtertyre grows the aik,  
On Yarrow banks the birken shaw;  
But Phemie was a bonier lass  
Than braes o’ Yarrow ever saw.

*Chorus*  
Blythe, blythe and merry was she,  
Blythe was she but and ben;  
Blythe by the banks of Earn,  
And blythe in Glenturit glen.

Her looks were like a flow’r in May,  
Her smile was like a simmer morn:  
She tripped by the banks o’ Earn,  
As light’s a bird upon a thorn.

*Chorus*  
Blythe, blythe and merry was she,  
Blythe was she but and ben;  
Blythe by the banks of Earn,  
And blythe in Glenturit glen.

Her bonie face it was as meek  
As ony lamb upon a lea;  
The evening sun was ne’er sae sweet,  
As was the blink o’ Phemie’s e’e.

*Chorus*  
Blythe, blythe and merry was she,  
Blythe was she but and ben;  
Blythe by the banks of Earn,  
And blythe in Glenturit glen.

The Highland hills I’ve wander’d wide,  
And o’er the Lawlands I hae been;  
But Phemie was the blythest lass  
That ever trod the dewy green.

*Chorus*  
Blythe, blythe and merry was she,  
Blythe was she but and ben;  
Blythe by the banks of Earn,  
And blythe in Glenturit glen.

## Footnotes
1. Written at Oughtertyre. Phemie is Miss Euphemia Murray, a cousin of Sir William Murray of Oughtertyre.—Lang.

---

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/blythe-was-she/