Scottish Country Dancing Dictionary

Adown Winding Nith

Scottish Song By Robert Burns

Adown Winding Nith (also known as Phillis The Queen O' The Fair) is a Scottish song written by Robert Burns in 1793 and it is adapted to the tune called The Muckin O' Geordie's Byre.

The tune has its name from an old song, the subject of which was the complaint of a young lady (said to be a baronet's daughter) who, about the beginning of the last century, married one of her father's tenants. Being disowned by her family, she was obliged to submit to the drudgery of menial labour.


Related Scottish Country Dances

The Winding Nith

Adown Winding Nith By Robert Burns

Adown winding Nith I did wander,
To mark the sweet flowers as they spring;
Adown winding Nith I did wander,
Of Phillis to muse and to sing.

Chorus
Awa' wi' your belles and your beauties,
They never wi' her can compare,
Whaever has met wi' my Phillis,
Has met wi' the queen o' the fair.

The daisy amus'd my fond fancy,
So artless, so simple, so wild;
Thou emblem, said I, o' my Phillis-
For she is Simplicity's child.

Chorus

The rose-bud's the blush o' my charmer,
Her sweet balmy lip when 'tis prest:
How fair and how pure is the lily!
But fairer and purer her breast.

Chorus

Yon knot of gay flowers in the arbour,
They ne'er wi' my Phillis can vie:
Her breath is the breath of the woodbine,
Its dew-drop o' diamond her eye.

Chorus

Her voice is the song o' the morning,
That wakes thro' the green-spreading grove
When Phoebus peeps over the mountains,
On music, and pleasure, and love.

Chorus

But beauty, how frail and how fleeting!
The bloom of a fine summer's day;
While worth in the mind o' my Phillis,
Will flourish without a decay.

Chorus


Adown Winding Nith Song Video

Adown Winding Nith Song - Information Video
Adown Winding Nith
Adown Winding Nith, From Glen Collection Of Printed Music, Songs Of Robert Burns, Page 52, c. 1903


The Online Scots Dictionary Translate Scots To English.
Published in http://www.robertburnsfederation.com/poems/translations/adown_winding_nith.htm (with translation).
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Text from this original The Book of Scottish Song/Adown-Winding-Nith article on Wikisource.
Image from (cropped) National Library Of Scotland, licensed under Creative Commons BY-SA 4.0.

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