Tessie Buckley Murphy
by Timothy Murphy
Oh I was a wee lad, my grandmother grave,
when I first learned the words to ‘Loch Lomond’,
but four years of age, I was nae prince’s slave
and my Tessie I had in the gloamin’.
We marched frae her farm tae Edinburgh toun,
sixty-seven and four years togaither!
and we sang as we marched Rabbie Burns’s ‘Bonny Doun’,
and my bonnet was claid wi’ a faither.
Ye’ll tak the high road and I’ll tak the law,
but Scotland is moorland without ye.
Mickle are the losses that rub a young man raw,
but Tess, there are losses that rout me.
