Henry's Songbook

Away ye grey landscapes, ye gardens o' roses
In you let the minions of luxury rove
And restore me the rocks where the snowflake reposes
If still they are sacred to freedom and love
Brave Caledonia, dear are thy mountains
Round their white summits though elements war
Though cataracts roar 'stead of smooth-flowing fountains
I sigh for the valley o' 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 lingered
As daily I strayed through the pine-covered glade
I sought not my home till the day's dying glory
Gave place to the rays o' the bright polar star
My fancy was cheered by the bold martial story
As told by the sons o' dark Lochnagar

Years have rolled on, Lochnagar, since I left you
Years must roll on ere I see you again
Though Nature of verdure and flowers bereft you
Yet still art thou 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 o' wild Lochnagar

Brave Caledonia, dear are thy mountains
I sigh for the valley o' dark Lochnagar

Ill-starred now the brave, did no vision foreboding
Tell you that fate had forsaken our cause?
Yet were you destined to die at Culloden
Though victory crowned not your fall with applause
Yet were you happy in death's earthly slumber
To sleep wi' your clan in the caves of Braemar
The pibroch resounds to the piper's loud number
Your deeds to the echoes of wild Lochnagar

Brave Caledonia, dear are thy mountains
I sigh for the valley o' dark Lochnagar

As sung by The Corries

[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)

[1999:] Lachin y Gair, by George Gordon, Lord Byron, written in 1807. Music is attributed to H. R. Bishop. (Tiger, http://www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=8538#124789, 17 Oct)

See also
the original lyrics
Lachin y Gair
Lord Byron