Featured Poem: Heart in the Highlands by Robert Burns

For a number of years, The Reader ran a Shared Reading group at the John Denmark Unit, which offers special mental health services to adult deaf people in Greater Manchester. Once a month, our Featured Poem will be taken from the list of those read at the John Denmark Unit and interpreted for BSL users by Tony Redshaw.

Today's Featured Poem is 'Heart in the Highlands' by Robert Burns, read by Kate Weston. In this poem, the poet recalls his love for the highlands and evokes a sense of gratitude and longing for his homeland.

My Hearts in the Highlands

My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here,
My heart's in the Highlands, a-chasing the deer;
Chasing the wild-deer, and following the roe,
My heart's in the Highlands, wherever I go.

Farewell to the Highlands, farewell to the North,
The birth-place of Valour, the country of Worth ;
Wherever I wander, wherever I rove,
The hills of the Highlands for ever I love.

Farewell to the mountains, high-cover'd with snow,
Farewell to the straths and green vallies below;
Farewell to the forests and wild-hanging woods,
Farewell to the torrents and loud-pouring floods.

My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here,
My heart's in the Highlands, a-chasing the deer;
Chasing the wild-deer, and following the roe,
My heart's in the Highlands, wherever I go.

By Robert Burns