O, pity the lad and the lassie

That live in the muckle grey toon,

And fuit it owre cobbles and causey

This bonny mornin' in June,

Wi' never a blackie's bit tune.

 

Puir things, what ha'e they tae mind o'

When they look back on the schule?

High streets that led tae a kind o'

Den for the makin' o' dule,

Wi' its tawse and its dunce's stule.

 

But memory heaps up a treasure

For laddies and lassies that gang

Dawdlin' tae schule at their leisure

In the byroads winding amang

The fields, wi' the laverock's sang.

 

Ay, tenderly ey thae days 'll

Close in oor memory cling;

That mornin' we huntit the whaisel;

Hoo we chased the squirrel, puir thing,

Tae see hoo gleg it could spring.

 

At huntin' the neasts we were skeelfu',

And never a yin bit we'd ken:

The hempy, the linty, the sheilfa,

The yorlin', the tit, and the wren -

And a pheasant's we got noo and then!

 

The days o' the wild March weather,

When the great trees groaned i' the blast,

In the lown o' the dyke we'd gether

Tae wait till the shoo'er was past,

And got palmies for bein' the last.

 

And even the snaw-drifts o' winter

Are days that we fondly reca':

Shoutin' and lauchin', we'd vent're

Intae the deepest o't a',

Makin' oor shapes in the snaw.

 

O, pity the lad and the lassie

That live in the muckle grey toon,

And fuit it owre cobbles and causey

This bonny mornin' in June,

Wi' never a blackie's bit tune