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Lyric Poem · Love

The Flowery banks of Cree

by Robert Burns

HERE is the glen, and here the bower

All underneath the birchen shade;

The village-bell has told the hour,

O what can stay my lovely maid?

’Tis not Maria’s whispering call;

’Tis but the balmy breathing gale,

Mixt with some warbler’s dying fall,

The dewy star of eve to hail.

It is Maria’s voice I hear;

So calls the woodlark in the grove,

His little, faithful mate to cheer;

At once ’tis music and ’tis love.

And art thou come! and art thou true!

O welcome dear to love and me!

And let us all our vows renew,

Along the flowery banks of Cree.

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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).

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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
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.
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