Farewell to the Highlands, farewell to the North,
The birth-place of valour, the country of worth;
Wherever I wander, wherever I rove,
The hills of the Highlands for ever I love.
Farewell to the mountains, high cover'd with snow;
Farewell to the straths and green valleys below;
Farewell to the forests and wild-hanging woods;
Farewell to the torrents and loud-pouring floods.
The foregoing are all placed in the mouths of girls, and it is
difficult to deny that they ring as true as the songs that are known
to have sprung from the poet's direct experience. Scarcely less
notable than their sincerity is their variety. Pathos of desertion,
gay defiance of opposition, yearning in absence, confession of
coquetry, joyous confession of affection returned--these are only a
few of the phases of woman's love rendered here with a felicity that
leaves nothing to be desired. What woman has so interpreted the
feelings of her sex?
The next two express a girl's repugnance at the thought of marriage
with an old man; and the two following form a pair treating the same
theme, one from the girl's point of view, the other from the lover's.
The later verses of _My Love She's but a Lassie Yet_, however, though
full of vivacity, have so little to do with the first or with one
another that the song seems to be a collection of scraps held together
by a common melody.
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