Lyric Poem · War & Remembrance

There’ll never be Peace till Jamie comes hame

by Robert Burns

Reading room

1BY yon Castle wa’, at the close of the day,

2I heard a man sing, tho’ his head it was grey:

3And as he was singing, the tears doon came,—

4There’ll never be peace till Jamie comes hame.

5The Church is in ruins, the State is in jars,

6Delusions, oppressions, and murderous wars,

7We dare na weel say’t, but we ken wha’s to blame,—

8There’ll never be peace till Jamie comes hame.

9My seven braw sons for Jamie drew sword,

10But now I greet round their green beds in the yerd;

11It brak the sweet heart o’ my faithful and dame,—

12There’ll never be peace till Jamie comes hame.

13Now life is a burden that bows me down,

14Sin’ I tint my bairns, and he tint his crown;

15But till my last moments my words are the same,—

16There’ll never be peace till Jamie comes hame.

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“There’ll never be Peace till Jamie comes hame” by Robert Burns — quilloak.com/poems/therell-never-be-peace-till-jamie-comes-hame

Quick facts

Poem: There’ll never be Peace till Jamie comes hame
Poet: Robert Burns
Length: 16 lines
Form: Lyric Poem
Themes: War & Remembrance, Love, Sad

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 11-syllable lines.
Refrain: “There’ll never be peace till Jamie comes hame.”Repeated lines act as the poem's hinge or drumbeat.

The poem’s silhouette — approximate syllables per line, measured from the text above. Even bars mean a measured line; ragged bars mean the poem sets its own widths.

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Text, source & rights

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Author record: Robert Burns1759–1796
Source record: PoetryDBThere’ll never be Peace till Jamie comes hame 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 3f4aa7a467defc06…
Editorial handling: Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.

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Lyric Poem War & Remembrance Love Sad

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