MY HEART IS IN SCOTLAND.
1
My heart is in Scotland, my heart is not here,
I left it at hame with a lass I love dear:
When the twilight star shines over turret and tree,
I bless its light, Jeanie, and think upon thee.
What distance can fasten, what country can bind,
The flight of my soul, or the march of my mind?
Though hills rise atween us, and wide waters flow,
My heart is in Scotland wherever I go.
2
As the clear moon arises, O say, dost thou walk,
With the footsteps of him that's departed to talk;
To thy white neck and locks where yon brook slumbers calm,
Lends the woodbine its odour, the violet its balm?
Or when thou return'st to thy chamber of rest,
Dost thou mark you bright witness, hung high in the west?
To its light hold thy pure hands, far purer than snow,
And vow thou wilt love me, come gladness or woe?
3
The groves which we wooed in, the glens with their streams,
Still cheer me awake, and still charm me in dreams;
The flower and the bush, and the bank and the tree,
Come each with their tidings, my fair one, of thee;
The minutes seem'd proud of thy presence, nor flew—
Thy white arms clasp'd kinder, mair sweet thy lips grew,
And the blue sky above, and the pure flood below,
Shone and slept, for they seem'd of our rapture to know.
4
Now where are love's twilight walks? where the soft sigh,
The chaste greeting, and mild benediction of eye?
The hours when earth's glories seem'd dust at our feet?
The sorrow to sunder, the rapture to meet?
I left them in Scotland's green valleys at hame,
And far from the heaven which holds them I came:
Come wealth or come want, or come weal or come woe,
My heart is in Scotland wherever I go.
