Green Grow the Rashes by Robert Burns
The chorus celebrates the speaker’s happiest hours as those spent among women. He contrasts this pleasure with the universal burden of care and argues that life would have little value without “the lasses.” People may pursue riches, but wealth can evade them or fail to give them real enjoyment even when obtained. The speaker instead prefers a quiet evening embracing his beloved and dismisses worldly worries and worldly men. He rebukes sober-minded critics who sneer at such devotion, calling them foolish, and insists that even the wisest man loved women dearly. Finally, he presents women as Nature’s finest creation: Nature first tried her apprentice hand on man and then made the lasses.
By Robert Burns · First published 1787 · Genre: Lyric Poetry, Scottish Folk Song, Love Poetry · 314 words
First lines
A Fragment
Chor. -Green grow the rashes, O; / Green grow the rashes, O; / The sweetest hours that e'er I spend, / Are spent amang the lasses, O.
What this Textopian page supports
Green Grow the Rashes is listed on Textopian as a poem by Robert Burns, dated 1787 CE.
This source record anchors work identity, reading entry points, and catalog context for checking claims about the work.
- Work type: Poem
- Author: Robert Burns
- Date: 1787 CE
- Language: English
- Genres: Lyric Poetry, Scottish Folk Song, Love Poetry, Pastoral Poetry, Comic Poetry
- Length: 314 words
- Structure: 1 section, 7 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Very Easy (5th Grade or below)
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- Work identity for Green Grow the Rashes by Robert Burns
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Genres
- Lyric Poetry — The work is a short, song-like poem focused on personal feeling, pleasure, love, and the contrast between worldly care and intimate happiness.
- Scottish Folk Song — Its recurring chorus, Scots dialect, communal singability, and celebration of everyday courtship strongly align it with Scottish vernacular song tradition.
- Love Poetry — The speaker presents romantic and sensual companionship with women as life's greatest consolation and pleasure.
- Pastoral Poetry — The green natural imagery and preference for uncomplicated affection over wealth and social ambition evoke pastoral ideals of simple, natural contentment.
Tags
Scottish vernacular poetry · 18th-century Scotland · love song · lyric poem · chorus and refrain · celebration of women · romantic desire · courtship · embrace · sweethearts · female beauty · nature's creation