---
title: "My Lord a-Hunting"
author: "Robert Burns"
form: "Song"
year: "1787"
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/my-lord-a-hunting/"
---

# My Lord a-Hunting

## Song
*Chorus*  
My lady’s gown, there’s gairs upon’t,  
And gowden flowers sae rare upon’t;  
But Jenny’s jimps and jirkinet,  
My lord thinks meikle mair upon’t.

My lord a-hunting he is gone,  
But hounds or hawks wi’ him are nane;  
By Colin’s cottage lies his game,  
If Colin’s Jenny be at hame.

*Chorus*  
My lady’s gown, there’s gairs upon’t,  
And gowden flowers sae rare upon’t;  
But Jenny’s jimps and jirkinet,  
My lord thinks meikle mair upon’t.

My lady’s white, my lady’s red,  
And kith and kin o’ Cassillis’ blude;  
But her ten-pund lands o’ tocher gude;  
Were a’ the charms his lordship lo’ed.

*Chorus*  
My lady’s gown, there’s gairs upon’t,  
And gowden flowers sae rare upon’t;  
But Jenny’s jimps and jirkinet,  
My lord thinks meikle mair upon’t.

Out o’er yon muir, out o’er yon moss,  
Whare gor-cocks thro’ the heather pass,  
There wons auld Colin’s bonie lass,  
A lily in a wilderness.

*Chorus*  
My lady’s gown, there’s gairs upon’t,  
And gowden flowers sae rare upon’t;  
But Jenny’s jimps and jirkinet,  
My lord thinks meikle mair upon’t.

Sae sweetly move her genty limbs,  
Like music notes o’lovers’ hymns:  
The diamond-dew in her een sae blue,  
Where laughing love sae wanton swims.

*Chorus*  
My lady’s gown, there’s gairs upon’t,  
And gowden flowers sae rare upon’t;  
But Jenny’s jimps and jirkinet,  
My lord thinks meikle mair upon’t.

My lady’s dink, my lady’s drest,  
The flower and fancy o’ the west;  
But the lassie than a man lo’es best,  
O that’s the lass to mak him blest.

*Chorus*  
My lady’s gown, there’s gairs upon’t,  
And gowden flowers sae rare upon’t;  
But Jenny’s jimps and jirkinet,  
My lord thinks meikle mair upon’t.

---

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/my-lord-a-hunting/