Bonie Lesley

About Bonie Lesley
Excerpted from "The Book of Robert Burns By Charles Rogers, James Craig Higgins

BRIEF NOTICES OF OTHER FRIENDS OF THE POET, AND OF PERSONS REFERRED TO IN HIS WRITINGS.

Lesley Baillie. – Daughter of Robert Baillie, Esq., of Mayfield, Ayrshire, this young gentlewoman, who was eminently beautiful, is by the poet celebrated in his song beginning , "Oh saw ye bonie Lesley…." In dining with Mr. Baillie in July 1788, the Poet was much attracted by the charms of Miss Lesley and her sister. In course of a journey to England, Mr. Baillie and his two daughters visited the Poet at Dumfries in august 1792, and the Bard, who much appreciated this attention, afterwards accompanied them on horseback for fourteen or fifteen miles. Writing to Mrs. Dunlop on the 22nd of August he refers to the visit, and strongly expresses his admiration of Miss Lesley.


Excerpted from "Burns. A Study of The Poems And Songs." By Crawford

...Love songs of the kind usually termed "personal" seem to be the result of a method of composition that nineteenth-century critics have found it difficult to square with their conceptions of sincerity. Burns himself described the process in these terms:

Whenever I want to be more than ordinary in song; to be in some degree equal to your diviner airs; do you imagine I fast and pray for the celestial emanation? – Tout au contraire! I have a glorious recipe, the very one that for his own use was invented by the Divinity of Healing and Poesy when erst he piped to the flocks of Admetus. – I put myself on a regimen of admiring a fine woman; and in proportion to the adorability of her charms in proportion you are delighted by my verses.

To this class belong that highly-wrought song of artificial compliment "Saw ye bonie Lesley," written for miss Lesley Baillie of Mayfield, Ayrshire…. The tune is the soil from which has grown a lyric whose words are superior to the melody to which it is attached; today it survives as poetry alone. The first two stanzas provide an excellent example of Burns's use of assonance, instead of strictly formal rhyme. The second two show an elegant modulation from pure Scots-English to Scots-English with "a sprinkling of our native tongue":

In this song, written to a casual acquaintance, a woman of higher social status, Burns created an impression of great comeliness and charm of character…. As so often when he is writing really well, "The Deil" (Devil) appears – and is negated by Lesley's beauty.