The Marginalian
The Marginalian

Happy Birthday, Robert Burns: Prince Charles Reads “My Heart’s in the Highlands”

Scottish poet and lyricist Robert Burns, celebrated as Scotland’s national poet and a pioneer of the Romantic movement, was born on this day in 1759.

In 2009, to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the poet’s birth, BBC asked Prince Charles — known as the Duke of Rothesay in Scotland — to read one of Burn’s most beloved compositions. HRH The Prince of Wales chose “My Heart’s in the Highlands,” written in 1789 and found in The Complete Poems and Songs of Robert Burns (UK; public library). Enjoy:

My heart’s in the Highlands, my heart is not here,
My heart’s in the Highlands, a-chasing the deer;
Chasing the wild-deer, and following the roe,
My heart’s in the Highlands, wherever I go.

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 vallies below;
Farewell to the forests and wild-hanging woods,
Farewell to the torrents and loud-pouring floods.

My heart’s in the Highlands, my heart is not here,
My heart’s in the Highlands, a-chasing the deer;
Chasing the wild-deer, and following the roe,
My heart’s in the Highlands, wherever I go.


Published January 25, 2013

https://www.themarginalian.org/2013/01/25/prince-charles-reads-robert-burns/

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