The Rustic Lad’s Lament in the Town

David Macbeth Moir (1798–1851)

O, WAD that my time were owre but,

Wi’ this wintry sleet and snaw,

That I might see our house again,

I’ the bonnie birken shaw!

For this is no my ain life,

And I peak and pine away

Wi’ the thochts o’ hame and the young flowers,

In the glad green month of May.

I used to wauk in the morning

Wi’ the loud sang o’ the lark,

And the whistling o’ the ploughman lads,

As they gaed to their wark;

I used to wear the bit young lambs

Frae the tod and the roaring stream;

But the warld is changed, and a’ thing now

To me seems like a dream.

There are busy crowds around me,

On ilka lang dull street;

Yet, though sae mony surround me,

I ken na ane I meet:

And I think o’ kind kent faces,

And o’ blithe an’ cheery days,

When I wandered out wi’ our ain folk,

Out owre the simmer braes.

Waes me, for my heart is breaking!

I think o’ my brither sma’,

And on my sister greeting,

When I cam frae hame awa.

And O, how my mither sobbit,

As she shook me by the hand,

When I left the door o’ our auld house,

To come to this stranger land.

There ’s nae hame like our ain hame—

O, I wush that I were there!

There ’s nae hame like our ain hame

To be met wi’ onywhere;

And O that I were back again,

To our farm and fields sae green;

And heard the tongues o’ my ain folk,

And were what I hae been!