This is the version of the poem sent by Lady Anne Barnard to Sir Walter Scott in 1823 for publication.
‘Auld Robin Grey’
When the sheep are in the fauld, when the cows come hame,
When a’ the weary world to quiet rest are gane,
The woes of my heart fa’ in showers frae my ee
Unkent by my Gudeman wha soundly sleeps by me.
Young Jamie lov’d me well, and sought me for his bride,
But saving a crown piece he’d naething else beside,
To make the crown a pound my Jamie gaed to sea,
And the crown and the pound, O they were baith for me.
Before he had been gone a twelvemonth and a day
My Father broke his arm, our cow was sto’en away;
My Mother she fell sick, my Jamie was at sea,
And Auld Robin Grey, O! he came a’courting me.
My Father couldna work, my Mother couldna spin,
I toil’d day and night, but their bread I couldna win;
Auld Robin maintained them baith, and wi’ tears in his ee,
Said ‘Jenny, O! for their sakes, will you marry me?’
My heart it said Nay, and I look’d for Jamie back,
But the winds they blew hard, and his ship was a wreck;
His ship it was a wreck, why didna Jenny dee,
Oh, wherefore was she spared to cry out ‘Wae is me!’
My Father argued sair, tho’ my Mother didna speak,
Yet she looked in my face till my heart was like to break,
They gied him my hand, but my heart was in the sea,
And so Auld Robin Grey he was Gudeman to me.
I hadna been his wife a week but only four,
When mournfu’ as I sat on the stane at my door,
I saw my Jamie’s ghaist, I couldna think it he,
Till he said ‘I’m come hame my love to marry thee.’
O! sair, sair did we greet, and mickle say of a’
Ae kiss we took, nae mair, I bade him gang awa’,
I wish that I were dead, but I’m no like to dee,
For O! I am but young to cry out ‘Wae is me!’
I gang like a ghaist, and I carena much to spin,
I dare no’ think of Jamie, for that would be a sin;
But I will be my best a gude wife to be,
For O! Auld Robin Grey, he is sae kind to me!