The Ploughman's Life
The Ploughman's Life - fact Summary
From Scottish Dialect Collection
This short lyric appears in Burns s Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect and embodies his recurring celebration of rural labor and simple contentment. It presents a ploughman singing in May and aligns his life with the lark s morning song and return to its nest, suggesting harmony between work, nature, and seasonal renewal. The poem uses plain, pastoral imagery to valorize working-class experience rather than nostalgia or elegy, making it representative of Burns s interest in ordinary Scottish life and voice.
Read Complete AnalysesAs I was a-wand'ring ae morning in spring , I heard a young ploughman sae sweetly to sing; And as he was singin' , thir words he did say, - There's nae life like the ploughman's in the month o' sweet May. The lav'rock in the morning she'll rise frae her nest, And mount i' the air wi' the dew on her breast, And wi' the merry ploughman she'll whistle and sing, And at night she'll return to her nest back again.
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