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The Penguin Book of Canadian Folk Songs attributes the lyrics to Sandy Glendenning circa 1840 and states the tune was by Fowke. According to the notes on the The Tannahill Weavers album "Land Of Light," the lyrics were by Alexander Glendinning and the tune is William Marshall's Miss Admiral Gordon's Strathspey (1781). It also states that Robert Burns used the tune for I Love My Jean. There is some suggestion that Miss Gordon was, in turn, a reconstruction of the song tune The Lowlands of Holland (Scots Musical Museum 1788). Although Lowlands was published later, it was supposed to have been in a manuscript collection of an earlier date. However, the manuscript was lost and the earlier date cannot be verified.*
The tune is also known as Scarborough Settler's Lament. Scarborough is now a borough of Toronto. The Highland Clearances were as great a tragedy for the Highlands as Culloden. Thousands of crofters were forcibly removed from their land by the Highland chieftans. Many settled in Canada. |
Away with Canada's muddy creeks And Canada's fields of pine Your land of wheat is a goodly land But oh, it is not mine The heathy hill, the grassy dale The daisy spangled lea The purling burn and craggy linn Auld Scotland's glens give me. Oh, I would like to hear again The lark on Tinny's Hill And see the wee bit gowany That blooms beside the rill Like banished Swill who views afar His Alps with longing e'e I gaze upon the morning star That shines on my country. No more I'll win by Eskdale glen Or Pentland's craggy comb The days can ne'er come back again Of thirty years that's gone But fancy oft at midnight hour Will steal across the sea And yestereve, in a pleasant dream I saw the old country. Each well-known scene that met my view Brought childhood's joys to mind The blackbird sang on Tushey linn The song he sang, 'lang syne' But like a dream time flies away Again, the morning came And I awoke in Canada Three thousand miles from hame. |
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Information From
Digital Tradition thread on "Scottish song in vasrious forms" |
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