Ballad · Love
John Anderson, My Jo
by Robert Burns · 1789
Full-text availability follows the United States display decision recorded below; status can differ elsewhere.
“John Anderson, My Jo” by Robert Burns — quilloak.com/poems/john-anderson-my-jo
Quick facts
- Poem
- John Anderson, My Jo
- Poet
- Robert Burns
- Published
- 1789
- Length
- 16 lines
- Form
- Ballad, Rhyming Poems
- Themes
- Love, For Him
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
- Lines run 6-8 syllables (median 7). No single length dominates, which is normal once elision and contraction are in play.
- Refrains
- “John Anderson my jo, John,”“John Anderson my jo!”Repeated lines act as the poem's hinge or drumbeat.
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Text, source & rights
A traceable edition
First published before 1929 and checked line by line against the cited copy. Full-text display is based on a United States term-expiry review; status can differ elsewhere.
- Author record
- Robert Burns1759–1796
- Source record
- Poetry FoundationJohn Anderson, My Jo; Written in 1789 and included in James Johnson's The Scots Musical Museum (National Galleries of Scotland)
- Display decision
- Full text · United States · reviewed 2026-10-29
- Publication record
- Written in 1789 and included in James Johnson's The Scots Musical Museum (National Galleries of Scotland)
- Text fingerprint
- SHA-256 d405a70c6b5897cd…
- Editorial handling
- Whitespace normalized for web display; capitalised the first word of line 7 (“But blessings”), which the source prints in lower case. No other change.