Comin' Thro the Rye
O, Jenny's a' weet, poor body,
Jenny's seldom dry;
She draigl't a' her petticoattie
Comin thro' the rye.
Chorus:
Comin thro the rye, poor body,
Comin thro the rye,
She draigl't a'her petticoatie,
Comin thro the rye!
Gin a body meet a body
Comin thro the rye,
Gin a body kiss a body,
Need a body cry?
Gin a body meet a body
Comin thro the glen,
Gin a body kiss a body,
Need the warld ken?
Commentary
Notes
a’ weet: all wet
gin [g as in give]: if
draigl’t a’ her petticoattie: draggled (wet by trailing on the ground) all
her petticoats
ken: know
The first thing a typical English speaker will notice when introduced to Burns’s poetry is, of course, the dialect. However, once you get beyond that, the most striking thing about his poems is how wonderfully musical they are. Indeed, most of them practically sing themselves, and it is unsurprising to learn that many (including today’s piece) were actual song lyrics rather than ‘poetry’.
I also love the tone of today’s piece, somewhere between playful and earnest1, though leaning towards the latter. Burns has captured the feel of the setting and the moment perfectly, and done so in a few, simple words. And despite its slightly plaintive air, I can see this working very well as a drinking song :)
Taking fun
as simply fun
and earnestness
in earnest
shows how thoroughly
thou none
of the two
discernest
– Hein, ‘The Eternal Twins’
Snippets:
Salinger’s classic ‘Catcher in the Rye’ owes its title to the protagonist’s misremembering the poem as ‘Gin a body catch a body/ Comin thro the rye’ - the image of a ‘catcher’ in the rye stayed with him.
No less a person than the physicist James Clerk Maxwell parodied ‘Comin’ Thro the Rye’ in his ‘Rigid Body Sings’
Gin a body meet a body
Flyin' thro the air,
Gin a body hit a body,
Will it fly? And where?
Ilka impact has its measure
Ne'er a' ane hae I
Yet a' the lads they measure me,
Or, at least, they try.
Gin a body meet a body
Altogether free,
How they travel afterwards
We do not always see.
Ilka problem has its method
By analytics high;
For me, I ken na ane o' them,
But what the waur am I?
– James Maxwell
[Ilka: each; Ane: one; Waur: worse]
Links
The tune was a traditional Scottish one - sheet music and MIDI available at http://members.tripod.com/milwburnsclub/songs/throrye.htm
Biography of Burns: poem #81
— Martin
-
calling once more on Piet Hein: ↩