---
title: "Comin’ Thro’ the Rye"
author: "Robert Burns"
form: "Song"
year: "1795"
tune: "Comin Thro’ the Rye"
location: "Dumfries"
attribution: "First printed in Johnson’s Scots Musical Museum (vol. V, 1796), a few months after Burns’s death. The song existed in multiple traditional variants long before him; what survives is the polished Scots version Burns supplied to Johnson. His editorial hand is clear — the refrain, rhyme and the unbawdied close — but the underlying folk-song is not his invention."
source: "James Johnson, The Scots Musical Museum, vol. V (Edinburgh, 1796); the version that “passed through the hands of Burns”."
source_url: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comin%27_Thro%27_the_Rye"
canonical_url: "https://robert-burns.com/poems/comin-thro-the-rye/"
---

# Comin’ Thro’ the Rye

## Attribution note
First printed in Johnson’s Scots Musical Museum (vol. V, 1796), a few months after Burns’s death. The song existed in multiple traditional variants long before him; what survives is the polished Scots version Burns supplied to Johnson. His editorial hand is clear — the refrain, rhyme and the unbawdied close — but the underlying folk-song is not his invention.

## Song
O, Jenny’s a’ weet, poor body,  
Jenny’s seldom dry:  
She draigl’t a’ her petticoatie,  
Comin thro’ the rye!

*Chorus*  
Comin thro’ the rye, poor body,  
Comin thro’ the rye,  
She draigl’t a’ her petticoatie,  
Comin thro’ the rye!

Gin a body meet a body  
Comin thro’ the rye,  
Gin a body kiss a body,  
Need a body cry?

Gin a body meet a body  
Comin thro’ the glen,  
Gin a body kiss a body,  
Need the warl’ ken?

Gin a body meet a body  
Comin thro’ the grain;  
Gin a body kiss a body,  
The thing’s a body’s ain.

---

Source: [James Johnson, The Scots Musical Museum, vol. V (Edinburgh, 1796); the version that “passed through the hands of Burns”.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comin%27_Thro%27_the_Rye)  
Canonical HTML: https://robert-burns.com/poems/comin-thro-the-rye/