Lyric Poem · Death & Loss
I Gaed a Waefu’ Gate Yestreen
by Robert Burns
I GAED a waefu’ gate yestreen,
A gate, I fear, I’ll dearly rue;
I gat my death frae twa sweet een,
Twa lovely een o’bonie blue.
’Twas not her golden ringlets bright,
Her lips like roses wat wi’ dew,
Her heaving bosom, lily-white—
It was her een sae bonie blue.
She talk’d, she smil’d, my heart she wyl’d;
She charm’d my soul I wist na how;
And aye the stound, the deadly wound,
Cam frae her een so bonie blue.
But “spare to speak, and spare to speed;”
She’ll aiblins listen to my vow:
Should she refuse, I’ll lay my dead
To her twa een sae bonie blue.
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“I Gaed a Waefu’ Gate Yestreen” by Robert Burns — quilloak.com/poems/i-gaed-a-waefu-gate-yestreen
Quick facts
- Poem
- I Gaed a Waefu’ Gate Yestreen
- Poet
- Robert Burns
- Length
- 16 lines
- Form
- Lyric Poem
- Themes
- Death & Loss, Love, Nature
Craft notes
How this poem works
Measured from the text on this page, not copied from a summary. Counts are approximate: syllables and rhymes come from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, which models General American English, so dialect, older pronunciation, and performance can all change what you hear.
- Shape
- 16 lines · 2 octaves
- Line length
- Mostly 8-syllable lines (tetrameter length).
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Text, source & rights
A traceable edition
Full-text display is based on the committed source record and a United States term-expiry review.
- Author record
- Robert Burns1759–1796
- Source record
- PoetryDBI Gaed a Waefu’ Gate Yestreen by robert-burns, PoetryDB transcription
- Display decision
- Full text · United States · reviewed 2026-07-18
- Publication record
- Not recorded in the imported source
- Text fingerprint
- SHA-256 8be500c1b82b888c…
- Editorial handling
- Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.
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