My Poem of the Week: 'My Heart's in the Highlands' by Robert Burns

It's Burns Night, so my choice was only going to come from one author this week.  I should probably have made more effort to choose one of his poems in Scots, but this is a personal favourite - I used to recite it when I first moved to Lancashire, and was desperate to get back to Scotland.

My Heart's in the Highlands

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.

 

My heart’s in the Highlands, my heart is not here;

My heart’s in the Highlands, a-chasing the deer;

A-chasing the wild-deer and following the roe,

My heart’s in the Highlands, wherever I go.

 

Farewell to the mountains high-cover’d with snow;

Farewell to the straths and green vallies 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;

A-chasing the wild-deer and following the roe,

My heart’s in the Highlands, wherever I go.