The dawn it is breaking; but lonesome and eerie
Is the hour of my waking, afar from the glen.[50]
Alas! that I ever came a wanderer hither,
Where the tongue of the stranger is racking my brain!
Cleft in twain is my heart, all my pleasure betraying;
The half is behind, but the better is straying
The shade of the hills and the copses away in,
And the truant I call to the Lowlands in vain.
I know why it wanders,--it is to be treading
Where long I frequented the haunts of my dear,
The meadow so dewy, the glades so o'erspreading,
With the gowans to lean on, the mavis to cheer.
It is to be tending where heifers are wending,
And the birds, with the music of love, are contending;
And rapture, its passion to innocence lending,
Is a dance in my soul, and a song in my ear.
[50] This song was written in Edinburgh.