DARK LOCHNAGAR
(attr. H. R. Bishop / Lord Byron)

Away ye gay landscapes, ye gardens of roses
In you let the minions of luxury rove
Restore me the rocks where the snowflake reposes
Though still they are sacred to freedom and love
Yet Caledonia, dear are thy mountains
Round their white summits though elements war
Though cataracts foam 'stead of smooth-flowing fountains
I sigh for the valley of dark Lochnagar

Ah! there my young footsteps in infancy wandered
My cap was the bonnet, my cloak was the plaid
On chieftains departed my memory pondered
As daily I strode through the pine-covered glade
I sought not my home till the day's dying glory
Gave way to the rays of the bright polar star
For fancy was cheered by traditional story
Disclosed by the sons of dark Lochnagar

Ill-starred, though brave, did no visions foreboding
Tell you that fate had forsaken your cause?
Ah! were you destined to die at Culloden
Victory crowned not your fall with applause
Still were you happy in death's earthly slumber
To rest with your clan in the caves of Braemar
The pibroch resounds to the piper's loud number
Your deeds on the echoes of dark Lochnagar

Years have rolled on, Lochnagar, since I left you
Years will roll on ere I see you again
Nature of verdure and flowers has bereft you
Yet still you are dearer than Albion's plain
England! thy beauties are tame and domestic
To one who has roved on the mountains afar
Oh for the crags that are wild and majestic
The steep frowning glories of dark Lochnagar


This is the Corries version. Some notes:

[?:] "Near Lachin y Gair (pronounced in the Erse, Loch Na Garr) I spent some of the early part of my life, the recollection of which has given birth to these stanzas." (Byron, quoted in Songs of Scotland II, III)

[1970:] Son of Catherine Gordon of Gight and John Byron, [George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788- 1824)] succeeded to the title in 1798. He was educated in Aberdeen, Harrow and Cambridge. The tale of his works, loves, quarrels and death in the heroic Greek cause are well enough known. He and Walter Scott were men of a kind - a gigantic kind - and that fact alone is evidence of the essential Scottishness of his genius. (Penguin Book of Scottish Verse 17)
Byron himself, son of a Scottish mother and educated during his most impressionable years in Scotland, is included here by right. [...] There are few major English poets who can be heard sung in peasant bothies among the more native fare, but Byron's Lachin A Gair is a popular favourite, and those sophisticated critics who sneer at the poem but don't know the tune should hear it sung by a farm-labourer's 'tenore robusto'. (Penguin Book of Scottish Verse 47)

For a scrap of info on the music see this thread,
for the original words this one.
Picture of Lachin y Gair,
Lord Byron