Auld Lang Syne
Robert Burns · 1788 · 28 lines
“Should auld acquaintance be forgot”
This is a song, not a poem. Burns wrote it to an existing air and meant it sung, which is why the lines are the length they are.
Burns did not write this so much as rescue it. He sent it to Frances Dunlop in 1788 calling it an old fragment, and to James Johnson's Scots Musical Museum with the note that it was "the old song of the olden times". What he did was fix it: the two middle verses about the hills and the burn are his, and they are the reason the song survives. It is now sung, badly and with crossed arms at the wrong moment, in more countries than any other Scottish song.
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And auld lang syne!
Chorus.—For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne.
We’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.
And surely ye’ll be your pint stowp!
And surely I’ll be mine!
And we’ll tak a cup o’kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.
For auld, &c.
We twa hae run about the braes,
And pou’d the gowans fine;
But we’ve wander’d mony a weary fit,
Sin’ auld lang syne.
For auld, &c.
We twa hae paidl’d in the burn,
Frae morning sun till dine;
But seas between us braid hae roar’d
Sin’ auld lang syne.
For auld, &c.
And there’s a hand, my trusty fere!
And gie’s a hand o’ thine!
And we’ll tak a right gude-willie waught,
For auld lang syne.
For auld, &c.
The Scots in this one
14 words, from the glossary Burns's own editions carried. On a wide screen these also sit in the margin beside the line they belong to; on a small one, tap any dotted word.
- auld
- old
- lang
- long
- syne
- since, ago
- tak
- take
- o'
- of
- twa
- two
- hae
- have
- fit
- foot
- sin'
- since
- burn
- a rivulet
- frae
- from
- till
- to, until
- braid
- broad
- waught
- a draft