A Fragment
written in 1786
A Fragment - meaning Summary
Bawdy Celebration of Desire
Robert Burns' "A Fragment" (1786) is a short, bawdy Scots lyric that treats desire with frank humor. The speaker contrasts sober respectability with drunken sexual bravado and narrates a blunt, comic encounter with a woman. A repeating chorus—Green grow the rashes O
—gives the piece a songlike frame and communal tone. The poem reflects Burns' frequent interest in love, physical longing, and social masks, using vernacular speech and ribald comedy to normalize earthy sexuality rather than to moralize about it.
Green grow the rashes O, Green grow the rashes O, The lasses they hae wimble bores, The widows they hae gashes O. In sober hours I am a priest; A hero when I'm tipsey, O; But I'm a king and ev'ry thing, When wi' a wanton Gipsey, O. Green grow the rashes O, Green grow the rashes O, The lasses they hae wimble bores, The widows they hae gashes O. 'Twas late yestreen I met wi' ane, An' wow, but she was gentle, O! Ae han' she pat roun' my cravat, The tither to my penis O. Green grow the rashes O, Green grow the rashes O, The lasses they hae wimble bores, The widows they hae gashes O. I dought na speak - yet was na fley'd My heart play'd duntie, duntie, O; An' ceremony laid aside, I fairly fun' her cuntie, O. Green grow the rashes O, Green grow the rashes O, The lasses they hae wimble bores, The widows they hae gashes O.
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