Bonnie Wee Thing

DESCRIPTION: "Bonnie wee thing, cannie wee thing, Lovely wee thing, wert thou mine, I wad wear thee in my bosom, Lest my jewel I should tine." "Wistfully I look and languish In that bonny face of thime." She has such "wit and grace" that "To adore thee is my duty"
AUTHOR: Words: Robert Burns
EARLIEST DATE: 1792 (Scots Musical Museum)
KEYWORDS: beauty love nonballad
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Ford-SongHistories, pp. 265-270, "Bonnie Wee Thing" (1 text plus various related items)
ADDITIONAL: James Kinsley, editor, Burns: Complete Poems and Songs (shorter edition, Oxford, 1969) #357, pp. 490-491, "The Bonnie Wee Thing" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #V628
NOTES [179 words]: Although Ford praises this for its lyric effectiveness, it is a rather pointless piece, and has little if any place in tradition.
According to both Ford and Maurice Lindsay, The Burns Encyclopedia, 1959, 1970; third edition, revised and enlarged, St. Martin's Press, 1980, pp. 100-101, this was written about a young woman named Deborah Duff Davies, who was said to be very small but very pretty.
How much Burns desired Davies is hard to know. The sarcastic part of me observes that she was female and under the age of forty, so obviously he must have been interested. She was above his station, however, and it seems clear that he had no physical relationship with her; they did exchange letters, according to Lindsay, but his were very artificial.
Ford retells at length a story from Cunningham about Davies's unfortunate relationship with a Captain Delaney, which had no result and caused her a fatal decline. On this point, Lindsay quotes Ferguson: "Any one who cares to believe Cunningham is free to do so." Which, I think, tells us how much we ought to do so.... - RBW
Last updated in version 6.6
File: RoBuBoWT

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