As I Look'd Over Yon Castle Wa'
As I Look'd Over Yon Castle Wa' - context Summary
Published 1792 in Scots Dialect
This short comic poem by Robert Burns was published in 1792 in Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect. It exemplifies Burns’s use of Scots vernacular, rural imagery and earthy humour. The poem stages a grotesque, bawdy confrontation between a goose and a gled (a hawk), rendered in lively dialect and a repeated refrain that gives it a songlike, convivial feeling. Its tone and subject matter align with Burns’s interest in popular song, folk culture and frank sexual comedy, the sort of rustic material he often collected and adapted for print.
Read Complete AnalysesAs I looked o'er yon castle wa', I spied a grey goose and a gled; They had a fecht between them twa, And O, as their twa hurdies gade. With a hey ding it in, and a how ding it in, And a hey ding it in, it's lang to day: Tal larietal, talllarietal Tal larietal, tal larie tay. She strack up and he strack down. Between them twa they made a mowe, And ilka fart that the carlin gae, It's four o' them wad fill a bowe. Temper your tail, Carlin, he cried, Temper your tail by Venus' law; Double your dunts, the dame replied, Wha the deil can hinder the wind to blaw! For were ye in my saddle set, And were ye weel girt in my gear, If the wind o' my arse blaw you out o' my cunt, Ye'll never be reckoned a man o 'weir. He placed his Jacob whare she did piss, And his ballocks whare the wind did blaw, And he grippet her fast by the goosset o' the arse And he gae her cunt the common law. With a hey ding it in, and a how ding it in, And a hey ding it in, it's lang to day: Tal larietal, talllarietal Tal larietal, tal larie tay.
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