First printed in Thomson, 1799.
NOW rosy May comes in wi’ flowers, with
To deck her gay, green-spreading bowers;
And now comes in the happy hours,
To wander wi’ my Davie. —
Chorus
5 Meet me on the warlock knowe, witching hill
Dainty Davie, Dainty Davie;
There I’ll spend the day wi’ you,
My ain dear Dainty Davie. — own
The crystal waters round us fa’, fall
10 The merry birds are lovers a’,
The scented breezes round us blaw, blow
A-wandering wi’ my Davie. —
Meet me on, &c.
When purple morning starts the hare,
To steal upon her early fare,
15 Then thro’ the dews I will repair
To meet my faithfu’ Davie. —
Meet me on, &c.
When day, expiring in the west,
The curtain draws o’ Nature’s rest,
I flee to his arms I lo’e the best, love
20 And that’s my ain dear Davie. — own
Meet me on, &c.
Final Chorus
Meet me on the warlock knowe,
Bonie Davie, Dainty Davie!
There I’ll spend the day wi’ you,
My ain dear Dainty Davie. — own
This is another example by Burns of a fine lyric in the feminine voice. The arrangement of the song was the subject of an argument between Burns and that incessant meddler Thomson. Burns reacted with horror at the collector’s suggested modification to the music:
Dainty Davie, – I have heard sung, nineteen thousand, nine hundred & ninety nine times, & always with the chorus to the low part of the tune; & nothing, since a Highland wench in the Cowgate once bore me three bastards at a birth, has surprised me so much, as your opinion on this Subject’ (Letter 586).
Thomson not only meddled with the lyrics of Burns but had the audacity to change Beethoven’s music. This makes the poet’s outburst of reiterated sexual hyperbole comprehensible. Kinsley comments on this episode that Thomson’s ‘dogmatism hardened against Burns’s reitered self-assurance … unmoved by Burns’s lurid (and fictitious) comparison’ (Vol. III, p. 1438).