Handwritten Rediscovered Robert Burns' Song to be Auctioned

A handwritten copy of a song by Robert Burns, rediscovered in an album is about to be auctioned and could fetch between £8,000 - £12,000. Robert Burns (25 January 1759 – 21 July 1796) was born in the Scottish village of  Alloway (Scottish Gaelic Allmhaigh) and is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland. The song is called The Banks of the Cree. The River Cree is a river in Dumfries and Galloway (Scottish Gaelic; Dùn Phrìs is Gall-Ghaidhealaibh) which runs through Newton Stewart (Scottish Gaelic: Baile Ùr nan Stiùbhartach) and into the Solway Firth (Scottish Gaelic: Tràchd Romhra). 

Robert Burns was thought to have written this song in the Spring of 1794. He set the words to a tune composed by Lady Elizabeth Heron (1745-1811), the daughter of the Earl of Dundonald. The handwritten verse was put in an album for safekeeping more than 200 years ago with a selection of newspaper cuttings surrounding it dating back to the early 19th Century.

Image above: The handwritten manuscript courtesy of Bonhams. Below the words of the poem:

Banks of the Cree

Here is the glen, and here the bower,

All underneath the birchen shade;

The village-bell has told the hour,

O what can stay my lovely maid.

'Tis not Maria's whispering call;

'Tis but the balmy breathing gale,

Mixt with some warbler's dying fall

The dewy star of eve to hail.

It is Maria's voice I hear;

So calls the woodlark in the grove

His little, faithful Mate to chear,

At once 'tis music - and 'tis love.

And art thou come! and art thou true!

O welcome dear to love and me!

And let us all our vows renew

Along the flowery banks of Cree.