Robert Tannahill: Collected Lyrics
07 / 9
Public-domain lyrics

My Mary

Robert Tannahill

“My Mary” as printed in The Book of Scottish Song (1843).

Robert Tannahill: Collected Lyrics Text 7 1843 · historical text
Public domainScottish songFolk
Complete public-domain lyrics

This text comes from The Book of Scottish Song, edited by Alexander Whitelaw, a historical songbook transcribed on Wikisource and reproduced from the pinned revision linked below.

Verse 1

My Mary is a bonnie lassie,

Sweet as the dewy morn,

When Fancy tunes her rural reed,

Beside the upland thorn.

She lives ahint yon sunny knowe,

Where flow'rs in wild profusion grow,

Where spreading birks and hazels throw

Their shadows o'er the burn.

'Tis no the streamlet-skirted wood,

Wi' a' its leafy bow'rs,

That gars me wait in solitude

Among the wild-sprung flow'rs;

But aft I cast a langing e'e,

Down frae the bank out-owre the lea,

There haply I my lass may see,

As through the broom she scours.

Yestreen I met my bonnie lassie

Coming frae the town,

We raptur'd sunk in ither's arms

And prest the breckans down;

The pairtrick sung his e'ening note,

The rye-craik rispt his clam'rous throat,

While there the heav'nly vow I got,

That erl'd her my own.

Credits

Written by Robert Tannahill

Words by Robert Tannahill. Historical text published in The Book of Scottish Song (1843); public domain. No claim to a modern recording or arrangement.

Source & text edition

The Book of Scottish Song (1843), edited by Alexander Whitelaw, “My Mary”

Every contribution in this 1843 anthology predates modern copyright terms by more than a century; any contributor died at least 130 years ago, so the text is in the public domain worldwide (life+70 terms expired no later than 2020).

How to read this historical text and its source

Read the source on Wikisource

View copyright evidence · Transcription terms (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Retrieved 2026-10-12. Line spacing and section labels are adapted for reading. The displayed text follows the linked edition. Editorial notes and abstract artwork are by 52lyrics.
Keep tracing

More from Robert Tannahill: Collected Lyrics.

01Barrochan JeanPublic-domain lyrics02Dear Highland LaddiePublic-domain lyrics03Despairing MaryPublic-domain lyrics04Gloomy WinterPublic-domain lyrics