Bonnie Dundee - Walter Scott's Poem

Walter Scott's Poem

On 22 December 1825 Scott wrote in his journal:

The air of ‘Bonnie Dundee’ running in my head today I a few verses to it before dinner, taking the key-note from the story of Claverse leaving the Scottish Convention of Estates in 1688-9.

Scott sent a copy of the verses to his daughter-in-law Jane, mentioning that his great-grandfather had been among Claverhouse's followers and describing himself as "a most incorrigible Jacobite". This is a comic exaggeration, but Scott's ballad is certainly written from the point of view of Claverhouse, whom he had already celebrated in his novel Old Mortality (1816). It consists of eleven stanzas, which Scott admitted was "greatly too long" (Letters, vol. 9, p. 350), with a refrain copied from the traditional song Jockey's Escape from Dundee.

The poem was first published in a miscellany, The Christmas Box (1828-9), and then included as a song in Scott's unperformed play The Doom of Devorgoil (1830). Later adaptations for singing include only stanzas 1, 2, 8 and 10, with the refrain. After Scott's death, many changes were made in the text in different republications. Some add extra Scotticisms, e.g. "To the lords" becomes "Tae the lairds". The authentic long text below comes from The Poetical Works of Sir Walter Scott, Bart. (12 vols., 1833-4), ed. J. G. Lockhart (vol. 12, pp. 903-4).