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Adown Winding Nith

[ Roud 2137 ; Robert Burns]

John Nichol sang Adown Winding Nith in 2002 on the Linn anthology The Complete Songs of Robert Burns Volume 10.

Emily Smith sang Adoon Winding Nith to the tune of The Muckin’ o’ Geordie’s Byre as the title track of her 2009 album Adoon Winding Nith. She noted:

Our title track was written by Burns in praise of Phillis (aka Philadephia) McMurdo, younger daughter of John McMurdo of Drumlanrig. \Ne were first drawn to it by the name of our local river, the Nith, but the song is very much about the supreme beauty of Phillis.

Lyrics

Emily Smith sings Adoon Winding Nith

Adoon winding Nith I did wander
To mark the sweet flooers as they spring
Adoon winding Nith I did wander
Of Phillis to muse and to sing

Chorus (after each verse):
Awa wi your belles and your beauties
They never wi her can compare
Whaever has met wi my Phillis
Has met wi the Queen o the Fair

The daisy amused my fond fancy
So artless, so simple, so wild
Thou emblem said I o my Phillis
For she is simplicity’s child

Oh the rose bud’s the blush o my charmer
Her sweet balmy lip when tis pressed
How fair and how pure is the lily
But fairer and purer her breast

Yon knot of gay flooers in the arbour
They none wi my Phillis can vie
Her breath is the breath o the woodbine
Its dew drop o diamond her eye

Her voice is the song o the morning
That wakes through the green spreading grove
When Phebus peeps over the mountains
On music and pleasure and love

Oh but beauty how frail and how fleeting
The bloom o a fine summer’s day
While worth in the mind o my Phillis
Will flourish withoot a decay