---
title: "How Lang and Dreary Is the Night"
author: "Robert Burns"
form: "Poem"
year: "1794"
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/how-lang-and-dreary-is-the-night/"
---

# How Lang and Dreary Is the Night

## Poem
How lang and dreary is the night  
When I am frae my Dearie;  
I restless lie frae e’en to morn  
Though I were ne’er sae weary.

*Chorus*  
For oh, her lanely nights are lang!  
And oh, her dreams are eerie;  
And oh, her window’d heart is sair,  
That’s absent frae her Dearie!

When I think on the lightsome days  
I spent wi’ thee, my Dearie;  
And now what seas between us roar,  
How can I be but eerie?

*Chorus*  
For oh, her lanely nights are lang!  
And oh, her dreams are eerie;  
And oh, her window’d heart is sair,  
That’s absent frae her Dearie!

How slow ye move, ye heavy hours;  
The joyless day how dreary:  
It was na sae ye glinted by,  
When I was wi’ my Dearie!

*Chorus*  
For oh, her lanely nights are lang!  
And oh, her dreams are eerie;  
And oh, her window’d heart is sair,  
That’s absent frae her Dearie!

---

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/how-lang-and-dreary-is-the-night/