She's Hoy'd Me Out O' Lauderdale
She's Hoy'd Me Out O' Lauderdale - meaning Summary
Booted from Lauderdale
This comic-lyrical poem reports a fiddler’s fall from favor with a lady in Lauderdale. The speaker recalls being loved, housed, and treasured — his bed made and his music admired — but ends expelled: "she's hoy'd him out o' Lauderdale." The repeated refrain and recounted stages (arrival, prime, decline) compress courtship, loss, and social displacement into a short narrative. The fiddle functions as both instrument and emblem of status; its loss signals the collapse of the relationship and the musician’s dignity. The tone mixes rueful resignation with a wry, songlike rhythm.
Read Complete AnalysesThere liv'd a lady in Lauderdale, She lo'ed a fiddler fine; She lo'ed him in her chamber, She held him in her mind; She made his bed at her bed-stock, She said he was her brither; But she's hoy'd him out o' Lauderdale, His fiddle and a' thegither. First when I cam to Lauderdale, I had a fiddle gude, My sounding-pin stood like the aik That grows in Lauder-wood; But now my sounding-pin's gaen down, And tint the foot forever; She's hoy'd me out o' Lauderdale, My fiddle and a' thegither. First when I came to Lauderdale, Your Ladyship can declare, I play'd a bow, a noble bow, As e'er was strung wi' hair; But dow'na do's come o'er me now, And your Ladyship winna consider; She's hoy'd me out of Lauderdale, My fiddle and a' thegither.
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