The sober laverock, warbling wild, Shall to the skies aspire; The gowdspink, Music’s gayest child, Shall sweetly join the choir: The blackbird strong, the lintwhite clear, The mavis mild and mellow; The robin pensive Autumn cheer, In all her locks of yellow. This, too, a covert shall ensure, To shield them from the storm; And coward maukin sleep secure, Low in her grassy form: Here shall the shepherd make his seat, To weave his crown of flow’rs; Or find a sheltering safe retreat From prone-descending show’rs. And here, by sweet endearing stealth, Shall meet the loving pair, Despising worlds with all their wealth As empty idle care: The flow’rs shall vie in all their charms The hour of heav’n to grace, And birks extend their fragrant arms, To screen the dear embrace. Here haply too, at vernal dawn, Some musing bard may stray, And eye the smoking dewy lawn, And misty mountain gray; Or, by the reaper’s nightly beam, Mild-chequering thro’ the trees, Rave to my darkly dashing stream, Hoarse-swelling on the breeze. Let lofty firs, and ashes cool, My lowly banks o’erspread, And view, deep-bending in the pool, Their shadows’ wat’ry bed! Let fragrant birks in woodbines drest My craggy cliffs adorn; And, for the little songster’s nest, The close embow’ring thorn. So may Old Scotia’s darling hope, Your little angel band, Spring, like their fathers, up to prop Their honour’d native land! So may thro’ Albion’s farthest ken, To social-flowing glasses The grace be—‘Athole’s honest men, And Athole’s bonnie lasses!’ YOUNG HIGHLAND ROVER Loud blaw the frosty breezes, The snaws the mountains cover; Like winter on me seizes, Since my young Highland Rover Far wanders nations over. Where’er he go, where’er he stray, May Heaven be his warden, Return him safe to fair Strathspey, And bonnie Castle-Gordon! The trees, now naked groaning, Shall soon wi’ leaves be hinging, The birdies, dowie moaning, Shall a’ be blythely singing, And every flower be springing: Sae I’ll rejoice the lee-lang day, When, by his mighty warden, My youth’s return’d to fair Strathspey And bonnie Castle-Gordon. MY HEART’S IN THE HIGHLANDS 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!