Our Bonny Green-aik Tree

Written by John Crawford, a local man who was born in 1816 in the room where his relative, Highland Mary died and dedicated to the Greenock “folk.”

Gae sing o’ saunts an seers o’ auld-

Nae patron  saunt hae we-

Our faithers maskt their hamert maut.

An’ drank its halesome bree;

An as their drouth they sloken’d down,

They sang wi’ cantie glee-

“Oh! Stately fair may flourish aye,

Our bonny green-aik tree.”

An’neath its spreadin’ branches wide,

When storms our lift o’ercast,

May buirdly chiels for aye be rear’d

To brave ilk threaten’d blast;

An’ when a foreign soil they tread,

Or stem the briny sea,

The homely chorus let the raise-

“Our bonny green-aik tree.”

Oh. Ne’er may pleasure warm the heart,

Nor beauty smile to bless

The bairn wah slights a mither’s hearth,

Nor langs he haun to press-

Wha thinks na o’ his kindly hame,

Tho’ distant far be he

That wadna then the chorus raise-

“Our bonny green-aik tree.”

Our faithers drank their nappy yill

Our gaucy mothers span;

Ilk lassie busket trig and braw,

To win a young gudeman;

An’as they trippet fair an’ fond,

They sang wi’ lightsome glee-

“Our sunny shore, our bonny braes,

An bonny green-aik tree.”

A crooked steeple tower’d na then

Aboon our neighbour toun;

The bairnies toddled thro’ the glen

To pu’ the gowden broom,-

Whan circlin’ roun ilk grassy knowe,

They sang wi blithesome glee-

That ne’er a plotted bell wad hing

Aneath their green-aik tree.

Why not take our Grand Literary Tour round Greenock...