---
title: "To Miss Ferrier"
subtitle: "Enclosing the Elegy on Sir J. H. Blair"
author: "Robert Burns"
form: "Poem"
year: "1787"
location: "Edinburgh"
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/to-miss-ferrier/"
---

# To Miss Ferrier

### Enclosing the Elegy on Sir J. H. Blair

## Poem
Nae heathen name shall I prefix,  
Frae Pindus or Parnassus;  
Auld Reekie dings them a’ to sticks,  
For rhyme-inspiring lasses.

Jove’s tunefu’ dochters three times three  
Made Homer deep their debtor;  
But, gien the body half an e’e,  
Nine Ferriers wad done better!

Last day my mind was in a bog,  
Down George’s Street I stoited;  
A creeping cauld prosaic fog  
My very sense doited.

Do what I dought to set her free,  
My saul lay in the mire;  
Ye turned a neuk—I saw your e’e—  
She took the wing like fire!

The mournfu’ sang I here enclose,  
In gratitude I send you,  
And pray, in rhyme as weel as prose,  
A’ gude things may attend you!

---

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/to-miss-ferrier/