The Book of Scottish Song/The Mountaineer's Death

The Mountaineer’s Death.

[Robert White, Newcastle-upon-Tyne.—Here printed for the first time.]

I pray you, of your courtesy, before we farther move,
Let me look back and see the place that I so dearly love;
I am not old in years, yet still where'er I chanced to roam,
The strongest impulse of my heart was ever linked with home.
There saw I first the light of heaven—there, by a mother's knee,
In time of infancy and youth, her love supported me:
All that I prize on earth is now my aching sight before,
And glen and brae, and moorland grey, I'll witness never more!

Beneath yon trees that o'er the cot their deepening shadows fling,
My father first revealed to me the exile of our king;
Upon yon seat beside the door he gave to me his sword,
With charge to draw it only for our just and rightful lord.
And I remember when I went, unfriended and alone,
Amidst a world I never loved—ay! yonder is the stone,
At which my mother, bending low, for me did heaven implore:
Stone, seat and tree are dear to me—I'll see them never more!

Yon hawthorn bower beside the burn, I never shall forget;
Ah! there my dear departed maid and I in rapture met:
What tender aspirations we breathed for other's weal!
How glow'd our hearts with sympathy which none but lovers feel!
And when above our hapless prince the milk-white flag was flung,
While hamlet, mountain, rock and glen with martial music rung,
We parted there—from her embrace myself I wildly tore;
Our hopes were vain,—I came again, but found her never more!

O! thank you for your gentleness—now stay one minute still:
There is a lone and quiet spot on yonder rising hill;
I mark it, and the sight revives emotions strong and deep—
There, lowly laid, my parents in the dust together sleep.
And must I in a land afar from home and kindred lie?
Forbid it, heaven! and hear my prayer—'tis better now to die!
My limbs grow faint—I fain would rest—my eyes are darkening o'er;
Slow flags my breath—now, this is death,—adieu, for evermore!

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