---
title: "Elegy on Willie Nicol’s Mare"
author: "Robert Burns"
form: "Poem"
year: "1790"
location: "Ellisland"
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/elegy-on-willie-nicols-mare/"
---

# Elegy on Willie Nicol’s Mare

## Poem
Peg Nicholson was a good bay mare,  
As ever trod on airn;  
But now she’s floating down the Nith,  
And past the mouth o’ Cairn.

Peg Nicholson was a good bay mare,  
An’ rode thro’ thick and thin;  
But now she’s floating down the Nith,  
And wanting even the skin.

Peg Nicholson was a good bay mare,  
And ance she bore a priest;  
But now she’s floating down the Nith,  
For Solway fish a feast.

Peg Nicholson was a good bay mare,  
An’ the priest he rode her sair;  
And much oppress’d and bruis’d she was,  
As priest-rid cattle are,—&c. &c.

---

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/elegy-on-willie-nicols-mare/