My Heart’s in the Highlands
Robert Burns, 1790
Burns’s song of farewell to the Scottish Highlands, which the singer carries in his heart wherever he goes.
My heart’s in the Highlands, my heart is not here;My heart’s in the Highlands a-chasing the deer;Chasing the wild deer, and following the roe,My heart’s in the Highlands wherever I go.Farewell to the Highlands, farewell to the North,The birth-place of valour, the country of worth;Wherever I wander, wherever I rove,The hills of the Highlands for ever I love.
Farewell to the mountains high cover’d with snow;Farewell to the straths and green valleys below;Farewell to the forests and wild-hanging woods;Farewell to the torrents and loud-pouring floods.My heart’s in the Highlands, my heart is not here:My heart’s in the Highlands a-chasing the deer;Chasing the wild deer, and following the roe,My heart’s in the Highlands, wherever I go.