---
title: "The Lass o’ Ballochmyle"
author: "Robert Burns"
form: "Song"
year: "1786"
tune: "Ettrick Banks"
location: "Mossgiel"
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-lass-o-ballochmyle/"
---

# The Lass o’ Ballochmyle

## Song
’Twas even—the dewy fields were green,  
On every blade the pearls hang;  
The zephyr wanton’d round the bean,  
And bore its fragrant sweets alang:  
In ev’ry glen the mavis sang,  
All nature list’ning seem’d the while,  
Except where greenwood echoes rang,  
Amang the braes o’ Ballochmyle.

With careless step I onward stray’d,  
My heart rejoic’d in nature’s joy,  
When, musing in a lonely glade,  
A maiden fair I chanc’d to spy:  
Her look was like the morning’s eye,  
Her air like nature’s vernal smile:  
Perfection whisper’d, passing by,  
“Behold the lass o’ Ballochmyle!”

Fair is the morn in flowery May,  
And sweet is night in autumn mild;  
When roving thro’ the garden gay,  
Or wand’ring in the lonely wild:  
But woman, nature’s darling child!  
There all her charms she does compile;  
Even there her other works are foil’d  
By the bonie lass o’ Ballochmyle.

O, had she been a country maid,  
And I the happy country swain,  
Tho’ shelter’d in the lowest shed  
That ever rose on Scotland’s plain!  
Thro’ weary winter’s wind and rain,  
With joy, with rapture, I would toil;  
And nightly to my bosom strain  
The bonie lass o’ Ballochmyle.

Then pride might climb the slipp’ry steep,  
Where frame and honours lofty shine;  
And thirst of gold might tempt the deep,  
Or downward seek the Indian mine:  
Give me the cot below the pine,  
To tend the flocks or till the soil;  
And ev’ry day have joys divine  
With the bonie lass o’ Ballochmyle.

---

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-lass-o-ballochmyle/