Another Scottish song, from The Modern Scottish Minstrel by Charles Rogers (Edinburgh: Adam & Charles Black, 1856), Vol. III, page 107:


THE EXILE'S LAMENT.

1. By the lone Mankayana's margin gray
A Scottish maiden sung;
And mournfully pour'd her melting lay
In Teviot's border-tongue:

CHORUS: O bonnie grows the broom on Blaiklaw knowes,
And the birk in Clifton dale;
And green are the hills o' the milk-white ewes,
By the briery banks o' Cayle!

2. Here bright are the skies; and these valleys of bloom
May enchant the traveller's eye;
But all seems dress'd in death-like gloom,
To the exile who comes to die!

3. Far round and round spreads the howling waste,
Where the wild beast roams at will;
And yawning cleughs, by woods embraced,
Where the savage lurks to kill!

4. Full oft over Cheviot's uplands green
My dreaming fancy strays;
But I wake to weep 'mid the desolate scene
That scowls on my aching gaze!

5. Oh light, light is poverty's lowliest state,
On Scotland's peaceful strand,
Compared with the heart-sick exile's fate,
In this wild and weary land!