My Heather Hills
Scottish Song By John Ballantine
My Heather Hills is the title of a Scottish song written by John Ballantine, found in The History Of Scottish Song (pages 223/224) By Rev. J. Douglas Borthwick, published by Murray & Co., Stationers' Hall, 387 Notre Dame Street in 1874.The song "My heather hills / John Ballantine" is referenced in Scots minstrelsie. Vol. VI: a national monument of Scottish song, edited and arranged by John Greig; in six volumes, with original coloured illustrations by J. Michael Brown.
It also appears in "The Lyric Gems Of Scotland" (page 224), A Collection Of Scottish Songs, Original And Selected, With Music, published by Messrs. Wood & Co., Edinburgh and Glasgow.
Related Scottish Country Dances
My Heather HillsMy Heather Hills By John Ballantine
And bonnie are the plains in their simmer pride;
But the sea wi' its tide, and the plains wi' their rills
Are nae half sae dear as my heather hills.
I can heedless look on the siller sea,
I may tentless muse on the fiow'ry lea,
But my heart wi' a nameless rapture thrills
When I gaze on the cliffs o' my heather hills.
Chorus
Then hurrah, hurrah, for the heather hills,
Where the bonnie thistle waves to the sweet blue bells,
And the wild mountain floods heave their crests to the clouds,
Syne foam down the steeps o' my heather hills.
O! aft in my roving youthfu' days,
I've nestled and row'd on their sunny braes;
And pouket the bloom and the sweet hare bells
Aff the bonnie broomy knowes o' my heather hills.
I ha'e herried the nest o' the wild muircock,
I ha'e clamber'd the steeps o' the raven's rock;
I ha'e courted my love in their rocky fells,
And won a sweet bride on my heather hills.
Chorus
I cling to their braes like the bud to the thorn,
For many their heather knowlets sae free, was I born;
And the hame o' my youth is my lov'd hame still,
'Neath the kindly shade o' a heather hill.
And when nature fails, row'd in my plaid,
I'll lay me down on a heather bed;
And leesonie I'll wait till kind Heaven wills
To waft me awa' frae my heather hills.
Chorus
My Heather Hills, The History Of Scottish Song, c.1874
Image copyright (cropped), Public domain https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bc/The_history_of_Scottish_song_%28microform%29_%28IA_cihm_00184%29.pdf, Creative Commons Licence 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.