Ca' the Yowes to the Knowes

By Robert Burns 1759–1796 Robert Burns

Chorus

Ca' the yowes to the knowes,

Ca' them where the heather grows

Ca' them where the burnie rows,

My bonie dearie.

Hark! the mavis' evening sang

Sounding Cluden's woods amang,

Then a-fauldin let us gang,

My bonie dearie.

We'll gae down by Cluden side,

Thro' the hazels spreading wide,

O'er the waves that sweetly glide

To the moon sae clearly.

Yonder Cluden's silent towers,

Where at moonshine midnight hours,

O'er the dewy-bending flowers,

Fairies dance sae cheery.

Ghaist nor bogle shalt thou fear;

Thou 'rt to love and Heaven sae dear,

Nocht of ill may come thee near,

My bonie dearie.

Fair and lovely as thou art,

Thou hast stown my very heart;

I can die—but canna part,

My bonie dearie.

Biography

Born on 25 January 1759 in Alloway, Scotland, to William and Agnes Brown Burnes, Robert Burns followed his father's example by becoming a tenant farmer. Unlike William Burnes, however, Burns was able to escape the vicissitudes and vagaries of the soil in two ways: toward the end of his life he became an excise collector in Dumfries, where he died in 1796; and throughout his life he was a practicing poet. As a poet he recorded . . .

Continue reading this biography