Robert Burns

A Wakeful Mother

'Where are you going, my lovely lass (girl)?
Where are you going, my honey?'
She answered me right saucily: -
'An errand for my mother!'

'O, where live you, my lovely lass?
O, where live you, my honey?'
'By yon stream side, if you must know,
In a little house with my mother!'

But I went up the glen at evening
To see my lovely lassie,
And long before the grey morning came
She was not half so saucy.

O, woe befall the wakeful cock,
And the polecat stop his crowing!
He awakened the old woman from her sleep
A little bit before the dawning.

An angry wife I know she raised,
And over (out of) the bed she brought her,
And with a big hazel cudgel
She made her a well thrashed daughter.

O, fare-you-well, my lovely lass!
O, fare-you-well, my honey!
You are a gay and a lovely lass,
But you have a wakeful mother!