For Burns Night, The Skye Boat Song (Traditional arr Vickers)

Описание: The Skye Boat Song is a late 19th-century Scottish song adaptation of a Gaelic song originally composed around 1782 by William Ross, entitled Cuachag nan Craobh ("Cuckoo of the Tree"). In the original song, the composer laments to a cuckoo that his unrequited love, Lady Marion Ross, is rejecting him.
The 19th century English lyrics instead evoked the journey of Prince Charles Edward Stuart ("Bonnie Prince Charlie") in a small boat from Benbecula to the Isle of Syke. Disguised as a serving maid and with Flora MacDonald, he evaded capture by government soldiers after the Jacobite defeat at the Battle of Culloden in 1746.

Loud the winds howls, loud the waves roar,
Thunderclaps rend the air.
Baffled our foes stand on the shore.
Follow they will not dare.

[Chorus] Speed, bonnie boat, like a bird on the wing.
Onward, the sailors cry!
Carry the lad that’s born to be King
Over the sea to Skye.

Many's the lad fought on that day
Well the claymore did wield,
When the night came, silently lay
Dead on Culloden’s field.

Though the waves leap, soft shall ye sleep,
Ocean's a royal bed.
Rocked in the deep, Flora will keep
Watch by your weary head

Burned are their homes, exile and death
Scatter the loyal men;
Yet ere the sword cool in the sheath
Charlie will come again.