Dialect Verse
(By Murdoch Maclean, Edinburgh.)
The Scottish National Song Society's first prize lyric, won at the second annual
Sangschaw in Edinburgh on September 25 and 26.
There's a bonnie, bonnie mountain land lies far ayont the sea,
Where the breezes' sigh in simmer time was aye a sang tae me;
There's a tender, tender longing in the whisper o' its name,
For still tae ev'ry exiled hert it's hame, hame, hame.
There the mountain win's still murmur where the corries grandly sweep,
An' the hoary monarchs o' the waste their ceaseless vigils keep;
Oh! there the islands o' the west look fondly o'er the foam,
As if tae call their children back tae libertie an' hame.
Let other nations boast their deeds, their conquests on the wave,
But gie tae me the glorious land o' Scottish Martyrs grave;
For never heroes died like those what shared the bluid an' fame,
That the sacred lowe o' truth micht burn in ilka Scottish hame.
Oh! Scotland; as thy exile pines. ayont thy mither's care,
His garb though not the tartan plaid such as thy children wear,
An' though within his striving breast Ambition's flres may flame,
Still, like the needle tae the pole, his hert turns ever hame.
An' thus, as lane I'm sittin' at the camp fire by the stream,
I see the Islands o' the west as dimly in a dream,
Their wild woods seem tae beckon me-- I ken them in the flame--
An' their thousand voices calling speak a tender welcome hame.
Oh! there's a bonnie, bonnie land looms constant in my sight.
An' the stillness o' its sheltered vales comes o'er my soul to-night;
'E'en the forest breeze's murmur seems a whisper o' its name,
For, ah! tae ev'ry Scottish hert it's hame, still hame.
Notes
From the NSW Newspaper The Australian Star 28 Nov 1908 p. 11.
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