This is from Anne Lorne Gillies book, 'Songs of Gaelic Scotland


Yesterday I was on Ben Doran,
no stranger to its slopes;
I saw the glens
and the mountains I knew so well:
that was a splendid sight
to be walking over the hillsides,
when the sun was rising
and the deer were bellowing.

Happy was the gallant herd
when they moved off noisily;
and the hinds by the spring,
the speckled calves looked bonny there;
the does and the roe-bucks,
the black-cocks and the grouse -
the sweetest music ever heard
was their sound at dawn.

Happily I would go
stalking on the mountain passes,
going out to climb the rough heights,
and getting home late;
the fresh rain and the air
on the high mountain-tops,
helped me to grow up,
with good health and wellbeing.

I spent part of my upbringing
on the sheilings that I knew so well,
having fun and games and flirting
and enjoying the warm friendship of the girls
it would be going against nature
to expect it to be unchanged, -
we knew we'd have to leave all that
when the time came for us to go.

And now that old age has struck me
I find it's a complaint I can't shake off,
which has wrought havoc upon my teeth
and clouded my vision;
I can no longer be adventurous
even if I needed to be,
and even if the hunt was after me
I can't move very fast.

Yesterday I was on the moor
and heavy thoughts lay on my mind,
that my beloved friends who used
to roam the wastelands with me were no longer there
and the mountam that I little thought
would ever change,
now that she is covered in sheep,
I think the world has played a trick on me.

Farewell to the deer-forests,
oh! what wonderful mountains they are,
wth green water-cress and spring water,
a noble, royal, pleasant drink;
the moors mhich are so precious,
and the pastures which are so plentiful,
oh! joyfully I take my leave of them -
my thousand blessings on them forever.