Rises high in the breast,
An' the little wee bit starn
Rises red in the east,
O there 's a joy sae dear
That the heart can hardly frame,
Wi' a bonny, bonny lassie,
When the kye comes hame!
When the kye comes hame, &c.

Then since all Nature joins
In this love without alloy,
O, wha would prove a traitor
To Nature's dearest joy?
Or wha would choose a crown,
Wi' its perils and its fame,
And miss his bonny lassie
When the kye comes hame?
When the kye comes hame,
When the kye comes home,
'Tween the gloamin' an' the mirk,
When the kye comes hame!


[54] In the title and chorus of this favourite pastoral song, I choose
rather to violate a rule in grammar, than a Scottish phrase so common,
that when it is altered into the proper way, every shepherd and
shepherd's sweetheart account it nonsense. I was once singing it at a
wedding with great glee the latter way, "When the kye come hame," when a
tailor, scratching his head, said, "It was a terrible affectit way
that!" I stood corrected, and have never sung it so again.--_Hogg._