Here's the oldest printed copy I can find through Google Books. Note that this version is shorter than the version commonly attributed to Allan Cunningham. I am inclined to think Cunningham took a traditional song and wrote additional lines for it.

From Remains of Nithsdale and Galloway Song by R. H. Cromek (London: T. Cadell and W. Davies, 1810), page 178:


THE SUN'S BRIGHT IN FRANCE.
    (from Miss Macartney.)

After the battle of Culloden the wretched fugitives were driven among the woods and mountains of Scotland, where many perished with hunger and fatigue. Some took refuge in foreign countries; and there are many affecting fragments of song which seem to have been the composition of those exiles. As it was treason to sing them, the names of their authors were concealed beyond a possibility of discovery, and it is probably owing to this circumstance that they are now passed away and forgotten. The following gives a simple and touching picture of the feelings of an exile.

The sun rises bright in France,
    And fair sets he;
But he has tint the blythe blink he had
    In my ain countrie.

It's nae my ain ruin
    That weets ay my ee,
But the dear Marie I left a-hin',
    Wi' sweet bairnies three.

Fu' bonnolie lowed my ain hearth,
    An' smiled my ain Marie;
O, I've left a' my heart behind,
    In my ain countrie.

O I am leal to high heaven,
    An' it'll be leal to me,
An' there I'll meet ye a' soon,
    Frae my ain countrie!


[Does anybody else find it annoying that the song has "a-hin' " in verse 2 and "behind" in verse 3? Maybe this is simply a reflection of the fact that poets and singers are often somewhat bilingual, and tend to mix idioms, but I like my dialect "pure" or not at all.]