How Lang and Dreary Is the Night
written in 1794
How Lang and Dreary Is the Night - meaning Summary
Longing in Absence
Burns sings of painful separation and sleepless longing. The speaker endures long, dreary nights and restless days after being parted from a beloved. Memories of happier, "lightsome days" deepen the ache, while distance is imagined as roaring seas. The repeated chorus—lamenting lonely nights, eerie dreams, and a "widow'd heart"—makes the emotional state plain: absence has hollowed daily life and hope. The poem presents yearning as continuous and cyclical, a simple but intense portrait of how love’s physical absence reshapes time and experience.
Read Complete AnalysesHow lang and dreary is the night, When I am frae my dearie! I restless lie frae e'en to morn, Tho' I were ne'er sae weary. For O, her lanely nights are lang, And O, her dreams are eerie, And O, her widow'd heart is sair, That's absent frae her dearie! When I think on the lightsome days I spent wi' thee, my dearie, And now what seas between us roar, How can I be but eerie? For O, her lanely nights are lang, And O, her dreams are eerie, And O, her widow'd heart is sair, That's absent frae her dearie! How slow ye move, ye heavy hours! The joyless day how dreary! It was na sae ye glinted by, When I was wi' my dearie! For O, her lanely nights are lang, And O, her dreams are eerie, And O, her widow'd heart is sair, That's absent frae her dearie!
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