The Banks o’ Doon
Ye banks and braes o’ bonnie Doon,How can ye blume sae fair!How can ye chant, ye little birds,And I sae fu’ o’ care.
Thou’lt break my heart, thou bonnie birdThat sings upon the bough;Thou minds me o’ the happy daysWhen my fause luve was true.
Thou’lt break my heart, thou bonnie birdThat sings beside thy mate;For sae I sat, and sae I sang,And wist na o’ my fate.
Aft hae I rov’d by bonnie Doon,To see the woodbine twine,And ilka bird sang o’ its love,And sae did I o’ mine.
Wi’ lightsome heart I pu’d a roseFrae off its thorny tree;And my fause luver staw the rose,But left the thorn wi’ me.
Words in this poem
- lightsome a.
- Having light; lighted; not dark or gloomy; bright.
- staw v. i.
- To be fixed or set; to stay. [Cf. Dan. staae to stand, Sw. stå. *163.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Banks o’ Doon is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems Every Child Should Know The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library, Project Gutenberg ebook #16436; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Mary E. Burt, The Banks o’ Doon, in Poems Every Child Should Know (1904), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #16436, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/poems-every-child/the-banks-o-doon.html, id L25298.
Form and metre
The Banks o’ Doon is 20 lines in 5 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is common measure, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 91%).
See other poems in common measure.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 -A-A doon · fairA · birds · careA
- 3 -A-A bird · mateA · sang · fateA
- 4 -A-A doon · twineA · love · mineA
- 5 ABAB roseA · treeB · roseA · meB
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against common measure. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Ye banks and braes o’ bonnie Doon, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| How can ye blume sae fair! | 6 | ······ |
| How can ye chant, ye little birds, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| And I sae fu’ o’ care. | 6 | ······ |
| Thou’lt break my heart, thou bonnie bird | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| That sings upon the bough; | 6 | ······ |
| Thou minds me o’ the happy days | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| When my fause luve was true. | 6 | ······ |
| Thou’lt break my heart, thou bonnie bird | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| That sings beside thy mate; | 6 | ··˘/·· |
| For sae I sat, and sae I sang, | 8 | ········ |
| And wist na o’ my fate. | 6 | ······ |
| Aft hae I rov’d by bonnie Doon, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| To see the woodbine twine, | 6 | ···/˘· |
| And ilka bird sang o’ its love, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| And sae did I o’ mine. | 6 | ······ |
| Wi’ lightsome heart I pu’d a rose | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Frae off its thorny tree; | 6 | ···/˘· |
| And my fause luver staw the rose, | 8 | ········ |
| But left the thorn wi’ me. | 6 | ······ |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.