Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Scotland: Vols. VI–VIII. 1876–79.

Craigie Lea

The Bonny Wood of Craigie Lea

By Robert Tannahill (1774–1810)

THOU bonny wood of Craigie lea!

Thou bonny wood of Craigie lea!

Near thee I passed life’s early day,

And won my Mary’s heart in thee.

The broom, the brier, the birken bush

Bloom bonny o’er thy flowery lea,

And a’ the sweets that ane can wish

Frae Nature’s hand are strewed on thee.

Thou bonny wood of Craigie Lea.

Far ben thy dark green plantin’s shade,

The cooshat croodles am’rously,

The mavis, down thy bughted glade,

Gars echo ring frae every tree.

Thou bonny wood of Craigie Lea.

Awa’, ye thoughtless, murd’ring gang,

Wha tear the nestlings ere they flee!

They ’ll sing you yet a canty sang,

Then, O, in pity, let them be!

Thou bonny wood of Craigie Lea.

When winter blaws in sleety showers

Frae aff the norlan’ hills sae hie,

He lightly skiffs thy bonny bowers,

As laith to harm a flower in thee.

Thou bonny wood of Craigie Lea.

Though Fate should drag me south the line,

Or o’er the wide Atlantic sea;

The happy hours I ’ll ever mind,

That I, in youth, ha’e spent in thee.

Thou bonny wood of Craigie Lea.