Ye Banks and Braes

“Ye Banks and Braes o’ Bonnie Doon” – also known as The Banks o’ Doon – is one of Burns’s most poignant songs of love betrayed. He set his lyrics to the traditional Scottish air The Caledonian Hunt’s Delight, a melody later adapted for other pieces, including the hymn Morning Has Broken. Burns’s text was inspired by the tragic real-life story of Margaret (Peggy) Kennedy, a young woman seduced and abandoned by Andrew McDouall, the son of a wealthy landowner. Pregnant and shamed, Peggy sought a “declarator of marriage” in court. She died before the case was settled, but the court did recognise McDouall as the father and ordered him to provide for the child. It is likely Burns knew Peggy personally, and her fate clearly moved him. The song paints her sorrow through a contrast between the beauty of the River Doon’s banks – in full bloom – and the singer’s own grief.