Lyric Poem · Love
The Flowery banks of Cree
by Robert Burns
1HERE is the glen, and here the bower
2 All underneath the birchen shade;
3The village-bell has told the hour,
4 O what can stay my lovely maid?
5’Tis not Maria’s whispering call;
6 ’Tis but the balmy breathing gale,
7Mixt with some warbler’s dying fall,
8 The dewy star of eve to hail.
Full-text availability follows the United States display decision recorded below; status can differ elsewhere.
“The Flowery banks of Cree” by Robert Burns — quilloak.com/poems/the-flowery-banks-of-cree
Quick facts
- Poem
- The Flowery banks of Cree
- Poet
- Robert Burns
- Length
- 16 lines
- Form
- Lyric Poem
- Themes
- Love, Death & Loss, 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 · 4 quatrains
- Line length
- Mostly 8-syllable lines (tetrameter length).
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
- PoetryDBThe Flowery banks of Cree 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 e6f91aa982ca53ef…
- Editorial handling
- Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.