---
title: "The Laddie’s Dear Sel’"
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/the-laddies-dear-sel/"
---

# The Laddie’s Dear Sel’

## Poem
There’s a youth in this city, it were a great pity  
That he from our lassies should wander awa’;  
For he’s bonie and braw, weel-favor’d witha’,  
An’ his hair has a natural buckle an’ a’.

His coat is the hue o’ his bonnet sae blue,  
His fecket is white as the new-driven snaw;  
His hose they are blae, and his shoon like the slae,  
And his clear siller buckles, they dazzle us a’.

For beauty and fortune the laddie’s been courtin;  
Weel-featur’d, weel-tocher’d, weel-mounted an’ braw;  
But chiefly the siller that gars him gang till her,  
The penny’s the jewel that beautifies a’.

There’s Meg wi’ the mailen that fain wad a haen him,  
And Susie, wha’s daddie was laird o’ the Ha’;  
There’s lang-tocher’d Nancy maist fetters his fancy,  
—But the laddie’s dear sel’, he loes dearest of a’.

---

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-laddies-dear-sel/