Mary Morison Robert Burns Song Scotland

Tour Scotland travel video of the Mary Morison song by Robert Burns set to a slide show of some old photographs of Mauchline. Mary Morison or Mary Morrison, born 1771, died 29 June 1791, may have been the " lovely Mary Morison ", whom the poet Robert Burns admired as a girl of sixteen. She was the daughter of Adjutant John Morison of Mauchline. Robert Burns is thought to have proposed to, and been rejected by, Ellison Begbie in 1781 and it was probably she who inspired the lyric. However, her name did not sit smoothly with the melody the poet had in mind.

O Mary, at thy window be,
It is the wish'd, the trysted hour!
Those smiles and glances let me see,
That make the miser's treasure poor:
How blythely was I bide the stour,
A weary slave frae sun to sun,
Could I the rich reward secure,
The lovely Mary Morison.

Yestreen, when to the trembling string
The dance gaed thro' the lighted ha',
To thee my fancy took its wing,
I sat, but neither heard nor saw:
Tho' this was fair, and that was braw,
And yon the toast of a' the town,
I sigh'd, and said among them a',
"Ye are na Mary Morison."

Oh, Mary, canst thou wreck his peace,
Wha for thy sake wad gladly die?
Or canst thou break that heart of his,
Whase only faut is loving thee?
If love for love thou wilt na gie,
At least be pity to me shown;
A thought ungentle canna be
The thought o' Mary Morison.

Robert Burns was born, on the 25 January 1759, two miles south of Ayr, in Alloway, the eldest of the seven children of William Burnes, a self educated tenant farmer from Dunnottar in the Mearns, and Agnes Broun, the daughter of a Kirkoswald tenant farmer. The only occasion that Robert Burns visited Perth, Perthshire, was towards the end of his 22 day tour of the Highlands during August and September, 1787.

All photographs are copyright of Sandy Stevenson, Tour Scotland, and may not be used without permission.

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