Take Me Back To The Heather

As the young soldier laid dying on the battlefield of the Bonnie Prince his mind to ease the pain of his suffering mercifully drifts off into the beloved highlands and as the last of the smoke clears over the chorus of moans and groans of the injured, in his mind he writes his own eulogy…

I see the pipers marching in line

O’er the fields of purple heather

And the bonny lass I loved so well

Wears in her Tam a Robin’s feather

While the blazing sun in the sky

Brings a tear to her pretty eye

As she dreams of our last kiss

Before war said bye and bye

I’m laid out in the tartans

Of Clan Fitzroy of the Highland

My claymore is my badge

And my comrades close by stand

My Ma sheds her tears of regret

For the young boy she beget

As she looks at my scarred body

One more sight she’ll ne’er forget

For there’s the stone of me father

Of me Uncles, brother and cousin

They all died with honour afore me

When the pipes called the young men

Now the Thompson drums rattle

As they lower my body below

Where I’ll nourish the heather so…

it will continue to grow