O luely, luely cam she in
And luely she lay doun:
I kent her by her caller lips
And her briests sae sma' and roun'.

A' thru the nicht we spak nae word
Nor sinder'd bane frae bane:
A' thru the nicht I heard her hert
Gang soundin' wi' [my]1 ain.

It was about the waukrife hour
[Whan]2 cocks begin [to]3 craw
That she smool'd saftly thru the mirk
Afore the day wud daw.

Sae luely, luely cam she in
Sae luely was she gaen
And wi' her a' my simmer days
Like they had never been.

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View original text (without footnotes)

Confirmed with Scottish Poems, ed. by Gerard Carruthers, Everyman's Library, 2009, page 94.

¹ MacMillan: "ma"
² Scott: "When"
³ MacMillan: "tae"

Text Authorship:

• by William Soutar (1898 - 1943), "The tryst", appears in Poems in Scots, The Moray Press, first published 1935 [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):

• by James MacMillan (b. 1959), "Scots Song", 1991, published 1991, copyright © 1991, first performed 1991 [ 2 clarinets, viola, cello, double bass, and voice ], from Three Scottish Songs, no. 1 [sung text checked 1 time]
• by Francis George Scott (1880 - 1958), "The Tryst", published 1949 [ voice and piano ], from 35 Scottish Lyrics and other Poems, no. 14, Bayley & Ferguson for The Saltire Society, Glasgow, page 113 [sung text checked 1 time]

Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):

• ENG English (Iain Sneddon) , copyright © 2018, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
• GER German (Deutsch) [singable] (Bertram Kottmann) , "Das Stelldichein", copyright © 2018, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Research team for this page: Emily Ezust [Administrator] , Iain Sneddon [Guest Editor] , Andrew Schneider [Guest Editor]

This text was added to the website: 2017-09-12
Line count: 16
Word count: 97