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Lyric Poem · War & Remembrance

There’ll never be Peace till Jamie comes hame

by Robert Burns

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

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

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

There’ll never be peace till Jamie comes hame.

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

Delusions, oppressions, and murderous wars,

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

There’ll never be peace till Jamie comes hame.

My seven braw sons for Jamie drew sword,

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

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

There’ll never be peace till Jamie comes hame.

Now life is a burden that bows me down,

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

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

There’ll never be peace till Jamie comes hame.

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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.

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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
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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