Mary Morison

Mary Morison or Mary Morrison (1771 – 29 June 1791), may have been the "lovely Mary Morison", whom the poet Robert Burns admired as a girl of sixteen. She was the daughter of Adjutant John Morison of Mauchline.

Her tombstone carries the inscription - "In memory of Adjutant John Morison, etc., etc.; also his daughter - the poet's bonnie Mary Morison - who died 29th June, 1791, aged 20; and his second spouse etc.".

Life and character Morison died young, at the age of 20, being a victim of consumption in 1791. She is buried in Mauchline churchyard.

Local tradition however records that she was not an intimate of the poet and may have actually met him only once during tea at a friend’s house. The Rev Dr Edgar of Mauchline is recorded to have said that Morison's sister thought that identity of the 'Mary' of the poem 'Mary Morison' was indeed her sibling. Most authorities feel that the name was used by Burns for Alison Begbie as he called the song 'one of my juvenile works', which he was unlikely to say about a song written in 1784/5 when the Mary would have been a girl of about fourteen and twelve years younger than Burns himself.

"O Mary, at thy window be, It is the wish'd, the trysted hour! Those smiles and glances let me see, That make the miser's treasure poor. How blythely wad I bide the stoure, A weary slave frae sun to sun, Could I the rich reward secure, The lovely Mary Morison.