Lyric Poem · Love
My Wife’s a winsome wee thing
by Robert Burns
Chorus.—She is a winsome wee thing,
She is a handsome wee thing,
She is a lo’esome wee thing,
This dear wee wife o’ mine.
I NEVER saw a fairer,
I never lo’ed a dearer,
And neist my heart I’ll wear her,
For fear my jewel tine,
She is a winsome, &c.
The warld’s wrack we share o’t;
The warstle and the care o’t;
Wi’ her I’ll blythely bear it,
And think my lot divine.
She is a winsome, &c.
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“My Wife’s a winsome wee thing” by Robert Burns — quilloak.com/poems/my-wifes-a-winsome-wee-thing
Quick facts
- Poem
- My Wife’s a winsome wee thing
- Poet
- Robert Burns
- Length
- 14 lines
- Form
- Lyric Poem
- Themes
- Love, Peace
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
- 14 lines · 3 stanzas of 4–5 lines
- Line length
- Lines run 6-8 syllables (median 7). No single length dominates, which is normal once elision and contraction are in play.
- Refrain
- “She is a winsome, &c.”Repeated lines act as the poem's hinge or drumbeat.
Want the rules this form is measured against? Read what makes a lyric poem, or run your own draft through the form checker to see the same measurements on your lines. How we measure · Report a mistake
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
- PoetryDBMy Wife’s a winsome wee thing 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 4d0a644e6419fb71…
- Editorial handling
- Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.
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