Lament for Culloden by Robert Burns
I just finished listening to Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson. I hadn’t expected to get such a Scottish history lesson, not knowing anything about it beforehand. The reader had a lovely Scottish accent, and I really didn’t have any trouble understanding the meaning of the dialect (though I’m sure I couldn’t have spelled everything). I think after reading Kidnapped, I may have less trouble understanding Burns. (ha!)
Lament for Culloden
By Robert Burns
The lovely lass o’ Inverness,
Nae joy nor pleasure can she see;
For e’en and morn she cries, ‘Alas!’
And aye the saut tear blin’s her e’e:
‘Drumossie moor—Drumossie day—
A waefu’ day it was to me!
For there I lost my father dear,
My father dear and brethren three.
‘Their winding-sheet the bluidy clay,
Their graves are growing green to see;
And by them lies the dearest lad
That ever blest a woman’s e’e!
Now wae to thee, thou cruel lord,
A bluidy man I trow thou be;
For mony a heart thou hast made sair,
That ne’er did wrang to thine or thee.’
