All on a Summer's Evening

As I was walking down yon hill

All on a Summer's evening

There I spied a bonny lass

Skipping barefoot through the heather

And oh but she was neatly dressed

She neither needed hat nor feather

She was the queen among them all

Skipping barefoot through the heather

She wore a gown o' bonny blue

Her petticoats were a pheasant colour

And in between the stripes were seen

Shining bells of blooming heather

Oh dear lass would you gan with me?

Would you gan with me and leave your heather?

Silks and satins ye shall wear

If you gan with me and leave your heather

Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh

Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh

Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh

Oh oh oh

In the final week of May 1919, Will Sines last lamb is born

He strides out from Currie Lee, past Crichton and through the tall Scots' pines

The sky melts: amber, cherry-pink and violet

As the ground levels onto Fala Moor

And the Forth valley opens up a thousand feet below him

He traces the line of the salter's road down to the sea

The wind blows up, and he hears her, before he sees her

His Roberta

Her clear true voice lilting through the heather, in amongst the larks

For the first time since he left that desert war

There she sits, with her narrow back to him

Her black hair tumbling down her spine

Her bare feet dangling in Fala Flow