Green Sleeves
written in 1789
Green Sleeves - context Summary
Written in 1789
Composed in 1789, this short lyric sits within Robert Burns’s project of working in Scots vernacular and folk-song tradition. It presents a speaker who marks his beloved by “green sleeves and tartan ties” and promises to rouse her in the morning with his fiddle, establishing music as a vehicle of intimacy and social identity. The poem’s spare stanzas and dialect word thegither
evoke communal song and rural life rather than private confession. No specific occasion or publication is recorded for the piece.
Green sleeves and tartan ties Mark my truelove where she lies; I'll be at her or she rise, My fiddle and I thegither. Be it by the chrystal burn, Be it by the mill-white thorn, I shall rouse her in the morn, My fiddle and I thegither.
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