Canadian Boat Song

Because I'm not sure anyone actually reads this blog, I write here just as much for my enjoyment as others. I write it here so that I'll always have it when I need it. So I can remind myself of thoughts I had, and organize my feelings. Its like a journey, you know? A self-discovery. Why do I like this kind of stuff? Why do I like cultures? Obviously not every like or dislike needs a reason, but my curiousity gets the best of me sometimes.

Anyway, here is a poem I recently discovered that I want to preserve. Maybe someday I'll get the poem framed and put it on my wall. The idea of it, is that even though a person isn't in scotland, they still have highland blood. Nobody knows exactly who wrote this poem, and some say it was sung is gaelic, but that isnt sure. It appeared in blackwood's magazine. Its said that it was sung in boats during fur trading.

Canadian Boat Song
Anonymous
Listen to me, as when ye heard our father
Sing long ago, the song of other shores —
Listen to me, and then in chorus gather
All your deep voices, as ye pull your oars:
CHORUS
Fair these broad meads — these hoary woods are grand;
But we are exiles from our fathers' land.

From the lone shieling of the misty island
Mountains divide us, and the waste of seas —
Yet still the blood is strong, the heart is Highland,
And we in dreams behold the Hebrides:
Fair these broad meads — these hoary woods are grand;
But we are exiles from our fathers' land.

We ne'er shall tread the fancy-haunted valley,
Where 'tween the dark hills creeps the small clear stream,
In arms around the patriarch banner rally,
Nor see the moon on royal tombstones gleam:
Fair these broad meads — these hoary woods are grand;
But we are exiles from our fathers' land.

When the bold kindred, in the time long-vanish'd,
Conquer'd the soil and fortified the keep, —
No seer foretold the children would be banish'd,
That a degenerate Lord might boast his sheep:
Fair these broad meads — these hoary woods are grand;
But we are exiles from our fathers' land.

Come foreign rage — let Discord burst in slaughter!
O then for clansman true, and stern claymore —
The hearts that would have given their blood like water,
Beat heavily beyond the Atlantic roar:
Fair these broad meads — these hoary woods are grand;
But we are exiles from our fathers' land.^[5]