Scottish Poetry Selection
- Sing Me a Song of a Lad That is Gone
Robert Louis Stevenson developed a desire to travel early in his life and he was later able to satisfy that longing not just with his many visits to France, then following his wife-to-be to California and later sailing in the South Pacific before finally settling in Samoa. In this poem, however, he dreams longingly of a journey - in his much younger days - to the Western Isles of Scotland.
Sing Me a Song of a Lad That is Gone
Sing me a song of a lad that is gone,
Say, could that lad be I?
Merry of soul he sailed on a day
Over the sea to Skye.Mull was astern, Rum on the port,
Eigg on the starboard bow;
Glory of youth glowed in his soul;
Where is that glory now?Sing me a song of a lad that is gone,
Say, could that lad be I?
Merry of soul he sailed on a day
Over the sea to Skye.Give me again all that was there
Give me the sun that shone!
Give me the eyes, give me the soul,
Give me the lad that's gone!Sing me a song of a lad that is gone,
Say, could that lad be I?
Merry of soul he sailed on a day
Over the sea to Skye.Billow and breeze, islands and seas,
Mountains of rain and sun,
All that was good, all that was fair,
All that was me is gone.
Where else would you like to go in Scotland?
