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(Translated by Lord Eglinton)
LISTEN to me, as when ye heard our father | |
| Sing long ago the songs of other shores: | |
| Listen to me, and then in chorus gather | |
| All your deep voices, as you pull your oars: | |
| Fair these broad meads,—these hoary woods are grand; | 5 |
| But we are exiles from our Fathers’ Land. | |
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| From the lone shieling of the misty Island | |
| Mountains divide us, and the waste of seas; | |
| Yet still the blood is strong, the heart is Highland, | |
| And we in dreams behold the Hebrides: | 10 |
| Fair these broad meads,—these hoary woods are grand; | |
| But we are exiles from our Fathers’ Land. | |
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| We ne’er shall tread the fancy-haunted valley, | |
| Where ’tween the dark hills creeps the small clear stream, | |
| In arms around the patriarch banner rally, | 15 |
| Nor see the moon on royal tombstones gleam: | |
| Fair these broad meads,—these hoary woods are grand; | |
| But we are exiles from our Fathers’ Land. | |
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| When the bold kindred, in the time long vanished, | |
| Conquered the soil and fortified the keep, | 20 |
| No seer foretold the children would be banished, | |
| That a degenerate lord might boast his sheep: | |
| Fair these broad meads,—these hoary woods are grand; | |
| But we are exiles from our Fathers’ Land. | |
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| Come, foreign rage, let discord burst in slaughter! | 25 |
| O then for clansmen true, and stern claymore! | |
| The hearts that would have given their blood like water | |
| Beat heavily, beyond the Atlantic roar: | |
| Fair these broad meads,—these hoary woods are grand; | |
| But we are exiles from our Fathers’ Land. | 30 |
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