Highland Mary Poem by Mary Weston Fordham

Will you leave the hills of Scotland?
Your childhood's happy home,
To brave the dangers of the deep,
In foreign lands to roam-
Say, Mary, will you, for my sake
Leave yonder joyous cot-
Your youthful friends and scenes so dear,
To share a soldier's lot?

The battle's din, my Mary,
Has never met thine ear,
The woodlands' songsters melody
Is all that thou dost hear.
The vivid flash of musketry-
The cannon's thundering roar
Must meet thine eye, burst on thine ear
Sounds never heard before.

And now, fond one, I've told you all,
And I can say no more-
'Will you go to the Indies, my Mary,
And leave old Scotia's shore?'