---
title: "Phillis the Queen o’ the Fair"
author: "Robert Burns"
form: "Song"
year: "1793"
tune: "The Muckin o’ Geordie’s Byre"
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/phillis-the-queen-o-the-fair/"
---

# Phillis the Queen o’ the Fair

## Song
Adown winding Nith I did wander,  
To mark the sweet flowers as they spring;  
Adown winding Nith I did wander,  
Of Phillis to muse and to sing.

*Chorus*  
Awa’ wi’ your belles and your beauties,  
They never wi’ her can compare,  
Whaever has met wi’ my Phillis,  
Has met wi’ the queen o’ the fair.

The daisy amus’d my fond fancy,  
So artless, so simple, so wild;  
Thou emblem, said I, o’ my Phillis—  
For she is Simplicity’s child.

*Chorus*  
Awa’ wi’ your belles and your beauties,  
They never wi’ her can compare,  
Whaever has met wi’ my Phillis,  
Has met wi’ the queen o’ the fair.

The rose-bud’s the blush o’ my charmer,  
Her sweet balmy lip when ’tis prest:  
How fair and how pure is the lily!  
But fairer and purer her breast.

*Chorus*  
Awa’ wi’ your belles and your beauties,  
They never wi’ her can compare,  
Whaever has met wi’ my Phillis,  
Has met wi’ the queen o’ the fair.

Yon knot of gay flowers in the arbour,  
They ne’er wi’ my Phillis can vie:  
Her breath is the breath of the woodbine,  
Its dew-drop o’ diamond her eye.

*Chorus*  
Awa’ wi’ your belles and your beauties,  
They never wi’ her can compare,  
Whaever has met wi’ my Phillis,  
Has met wi’ the queen o’ the fair.

Her voice is the song o’ the morning,  
That wakes thro’ the green-spreading grove  
When Phoebus peeps over the mountains,  
On music, and pleasure, and love.

*Chorus*  
Awa’ wi’ your belles and your beauties,  
They never wi’ her can compare,  
Whaever has met wi’ my Phillis,  
Has met wi’ the queen o’ the fair.

But beauty, how frail and how fleeting!  
The bloom of a fine summer’s day;  
While worth in the mind o’ my Phillis,  
Will flourish without a decay.

*Chorus*  
Awa’ wi’ your belles and your beauties,  
They never wi’ her can compare,  
Whaever has met wi’ my Phillis,  
Has met wi’ the queen o’ the fair.

---

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/phillis-the-queen-o-the-fair/