---
title: "The Last Time I Came O’er the Moor"
author: "Robert Burns"
form: "Poem"
year: "1793"
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/the-last-time-i-came-oer-the-moor/"
---

# The Last Time I Came O’er the Moor

## Poem
The last time I came o’er the moor,  
And left Maria’s dwelling,  
What throes, what tortures passing cure,  
Were in my bosom swelling:  
Condemn’d to see my rival’s reign,  
While I in secret languish;  
To feel a fire in every vein,  
Yet dare not speak my anguish.

Love’s veriest wretch, despairing, I  
Fain, fain, my crime would cover;  
Th’ unweeting groan, the bursting sigh,  
Betray the guilty lover.  
I know my doom must be despair,  
Thou wilt nor canst relieve me;  
But oh, Maria, hear my prayer,  
For Pity’s sake forgive me!

The music of thy tongue I heard,  
Nor wist while it enslav’d me;  
I saw thine eyes, yet nothing fear’d,  
Till fear no more had sav’d me:  
The unwary sailor thus, aghast,  
The wheeling torrent viewing,  
’Mid circling horrors yields at last  
To overwhelming ruin.

---

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-last-time-i-came-oer-the-moor/