Glen Collection of printed music > Printed music > Scotish minstrel > Volumes 4-6

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From The climes of the sun* all war — worn and wea»ry, .The
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Highlander s'ped to his youthful a_hode; Fair vis_ions of home i hcerM the
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Till spent With the march, that still lengthen'd before him,
He stopped hy the way in a sylvan retreat;
The light shady boughs of the birch— tree waved o'er him,
And the stream of the mountain fell soft at his feet.
He sunk to repose where the red heaths are blended,
One dream of his childhood his fancy past o'er;
But his battles are fought, and his march it is ended.
The sound of the bagpipe shall wake him no more.
No arm in the day of the conflict could wound him.
Though war launched her thunder in fury to kill;
Now the ang-el of deatli in the desert has found him.
Now stretched him in peace by the stream of the hill.
Pale Autumn spreads o'er him the leaves of the forest,
The fays of the wild chant the dirge of his rest;
And thou, little brook, still the sleeper deplorest.
And moistenest the heath-bell that weeps on his breast.
Many years ago, a poor Highland soldier, on his return to his native hills, f a _:
tigued, as it was supposed, hy the length of the march and the heat of the weath-
er, sat down under the shade of a birch— tree on the solitary road of Low ran,
that winds along the margin of Loch Ken in Galloway. Here he was (Found
dead, and the incident forms the subject of the above verses.
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