---
title: "I Gaed a Waefu’ Gate Yestreen"
author: "Robert Burns"
form: "Poem"
year: "1789"
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/i-gaed-a-waefu-gate-yestreen/"
---

# I Gaed a Waefu’ Gate Yestreen

## Poem
I gaed a waefu’ gate yestreen,  
A gate, I fear, I’ll dearly rue;  
I gat my death frae twa sweet een,  
Twa lovely een o’bonie blue.

’Twas not her golden ringlets bright,  
Her lips like roses wat wi’ dew,  
Her heaving bosom, lily-white—  
It was her een sae bonie blue.

She talk’d, she smil’d, my heart she wyl’d;  
She charm’d my soul I wist na how;  
And aye the stound, the deadly wound,  
Cam frae her een so bonie blue.  
But “spare to speak, and spare to speed;”  
She’ll aiblins listen to my vow:  
Should she refuse, I’ll lay my dead  
To her twa een sae bonie blue.

---

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/i-gaed-a-waefu-gate-yestreen/