Kitty Reid's House

Carolina Oliphant 1766 (Perthshire ) – 1845 (Scotland)



Air - 'Country Bumpkin.'

Hech! hey! the mirth that was there,
The mirth that was there,
The mirth that was there;
Hech! how! the mirth that was there,
In Kitty Reid's house on the green, Jo.
There was laughin' and singin', and dancin' and glee
In Kitty Reid's house, in Kitty Reid's house,
There was laughin' and singin', an' dancin' and glee,
In Kitty Reid's house on the green, Jo.

Hech! hey! the fright that was there,
The fright that was there,
The fright that was there,
Hech! how! the fright that was there,
In Kitty Reid's house on the green, Jo.
The light glimmer'd in thro' a crack i' the wa',
An' a' body thocht the lift it would fa',
An' lads and lasses they soon ran awa'
Frae Kitty Reid's house on the green, Jo.

Hech! hey! the dule that was there,
The dule that was there,
The dule that was there,
The birds an' beasts it wauken'd them a',
In Kitty Reid's house on the green, Jo.
The wa' gaed a hurly and scatter'd them a',
The piper, the fiddler, auld Kitty, an' a',
The kye fell a routin', the cocks they did craw,
In Kitty Reid's house on the green, Jo.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

1:05 min read
86

Quick analysis:

Scheme x aAAaBcxcB aAAaBdxdb aAAeBeexB
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 1,058
Words 208
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 1, 9, 9, 9

Carolina Oliphant

Carolina Oliphant, Lady Nairne (16 August 1766 – 26 October 1845) – also known as Carolina Baroness Nairn in the peerage of Scotland and Baroness Keith in that of the United Kingdom – was a Scottish songwriter. Many of her songs, such as, "Will ye no' come back again?", "Charlie is my Darling" and "The Rowan Tree" remain popular today, almost two hundred years after they were written. She usually set her words to traditional Scottish folk melodies, but sometimes contributed her own music. Carolina Nairne and her contemporary Robert Burns were influenced by the Jacobite heritage in their establishment of a distinct Scottish identity, through what they both called national song. Perhaps in the belief that her work would not be taken seriously if it were known that she was a woman, Nairne went to considerable lengths to conceal her identity (even from her husband) when submitting her work for publication. Early on she called herself Mrs Bogan of Bogan, but feeling that gave too much away she often attributed her songs to the gender-neutral B. B., S. M., or "Unknown". Although both working in the same genre of what might today be called traditional Scottish folksongs, Nairne and Burns display rather different attitudes in their compositions. Nairne tends to focus on an earlier romanticised version of the Scottish way of life, tinged with sadness for what is gone forever, whereas Burns displays an optimism about a better future to come.  more…

All Carolina Oliphant poems | Carolina Oliphant Books

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