The Book of Scottish Song/Prince Charles Edward

Prince Charles Edward.

[David Vedder.—Arranged to a beautiful Gaelic air by Finlay Dun.]

Farewell to thee, Scotland, thy verdure is blighted,
⁠Thy daisies are steeped in the blood of the brave;
And I, who thy wrongs with the sword would have righted,
⁠Am tossed like a fugitive serf on the wave!
Impelled to the pursuit, by gold and by vengeance,
⁠My foemen are swift as the storm-driven rack;
From the fierce brutal tribes they've selected their engines,
⁠The beagles and blood-hounds are scenting my tract.

Farewell to thee, Scotland, thy hills are receding,
⁠So beagles and blood-hounds can track as they may;
But my heart to its centre is wounded and bleeding,
⁠For thousands who fell on Culloden's dark day.
The hill-fox's howl, and the lone widow's wailings,
⁠Commingle at midnight, 'midst tempest and rain;
And the red mountain-streamlets by smouldering shellings,
⁠Brawl hoarsely and fiercely the dirge of the slain.

The chieftains and heroes who followed my banner
⁠Are pining in dungeons, and bleaching on walls;
Or, stripp'd of their all, saving conscience and honour,
⁠The grass growing rank on their hearths and their halls,
Farewell to thee, Scotland, thy loftiest mountain
⁠Is fading and blending with ocean and sky,
I groan—for my tears are dried up at the fountain—
⁠A wanderer I've lived, and an exile I'll die.

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