Alison BegbieAlison Begbie, the object of poet Robert Burns' affection, was born in 1759 and lived in the same small hamlet near Haddington, Scotland, as the Burns family; Burns' mother and sister lie in Bolton churchyard as do many neighbouring tenant-farming Begbies. Burns proposed to Alison in 1781, when both were 22 years of age, after writing her a series of very proper love letters. But Alison, it seems, had other ideas and politely rejected his proposal. Burns wrote a poem for her, which is now a well loved Scottish song:
Mary Morison Mary at thy window be,
It is the wish'd, the trysted hour,
Those smiles and glances let me see
That make the misers' treasure poor,
How blythely was I bid the stoure
A weary slave fare sun to sun
Could I the rich reward secure,
The lovely Mary Morison.
Yestreen when to the trembling string
The dance gaed thro' the lighted ha',
To thee my fancy took its' wing, I sat,
but neither heard nor saw:
Tho' this was fair and that was braw,
And yon the toast of a' the town,
I sigh'd and said 'among them a'-
Ye are no Mary Morison'.
O Mary Canst thou wreck his peace
Wha for thy sake wad gladly die?
Or canst thou break that heart of his
Whose only faut is loving thee?
If love for love thou wilt not gie,
At least be pity to me shown:
A thought ungentle canna be
The thought o' Mary Morison.
No portrait of Alison has survived. It seems likely that she was the daughter of Alexander Begbie (1825-1783) of Begbie Village.
