---
title: "The Banks o’ Doon"
author: "Robert Burns"
form: "Song"
year: "1791"
version: "First"
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/the-banks-o-doon-first/"
---

# The Banks o’ Doon

## Song
Sweet are the banks—the banks o’ Doon,  
The spreading flowers are fair,  
And everything is blythe and glad,  
But I am fu’ o’ care.  
Thou’ll break my heart, thou bonie bird,  
That sings upon the bough;  
Thou minds me o’ the happy days  
When my fause Luve was true:  
Thou’ll break my heart, thou bonie bird,  
That sings beside thy mate;  
For sae I sat, and sae I sang,  
And wist na o’ my fate.

Aft hae I rov’d by bonie Doon,  
To see the woodbine twine;  
And ilka birds sang o’ its Luve,  
And sae did I o’ mine:  
Wi’ lightsome heart I pu’d a rose,  
Upon its thorny tree;  
But my fause Luver staw my rose  
And left the thorn wi’ me:  
Wi’ lightsome heart I pu’d a rose,  
Upon a morn in June;  
And sae I flourished on the morn,  
And sae was pu’d or noon!

---

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/the-banks-o-doon-first/