| |
| O, WAD that my time were owre but, | |
| Wi’ this wintry sleet and snaw, | |
| That I might see our house again, | |
| I’ the bonnie birken shaw! | |
| For this is no my ain life, | 5 |
| And I peak and pine away | |
| Wi’ the thochts o’ hame and the young flowers, | |
| In the glad green month of May. | |
| |
| I used to wauk in the morning | |
| Wi’ the loud sang o’ the lark, | 10 |
| And the whistling o’ the ploughman lads, | |
| As they gaed to their wark; | |
| I used to wear the bit young lambs | |
| Frae the tod and the roaring stream; | |
| But the warld is changed, and a’ thing now | 15 |
| To me seems like a dream. | |
| |
| There are busy crowds around me, | |
| On ilka lang dull street; | |
| Yet, though sae mony surround me, | |
| I ken na ane I meet: | 20 |
| And I think o’ kind kent faces, | |
| And o’ blithe an’ cheery days, | |
| When I wandered out wi’ our ain folk, | |
| Out owre the simmer braes. | |
| |
| Waes me, for my heart is breaking! | 25 |
| I think o’ my brither sma’, | |
| And on my sister greeting, | |
| When I cam frae hame awa. | |
| And O, how my mither sobbit, | |
| As she shook me by the hand, | 30 |
| When I left the door o’ our auld house, | |
| To come to this stranger land. | |
| |
| There ’s nae hame like our ain hame— | |
| O, I wush that I were there! | |
| There ’s nae hame like our ain hame | 35 |
| To be met wi’ onywhere; | |
| And O that I were back again, | |
| To our farm and fields sae green; | |
| And heard the tongues o’ my ain folk, | |
| And were what I hae been! | 40 |
| |
