would reveal: 'Tis the sunset of life gives me mystical lore, And coming events cast their shadow before. I tell thee, Culloden's dread echoes shall ring With the bloodhounds, that bark for thy fugitive king. Lo! anointed by Heaven with the vials of wrath, Behold; where he flies on his desolate path! Now, in darkness and billows, he sweeps from my sight: Rise! rise! ye wild tempests, and cover his flight! 'Tis finished. Their thunders are hushed on the moors; Culloden is lost, and my country deplores; But where is the iron-bound prisoner? Where? For the red eye of battle is shut in despair. Say, mounts he the ocean-wave, banished, forlorn, Like a limb from his country cast bleeding and torn? Ah, no! for a darker departure is near; BANNOCKBURN. ROBERT BRUCE'S ADDRESS TO HIS ARMY. SCOTS, wha hae wi' Wallace bled; Now's the day, and now's the hour; Wha will be a traitor knave? Let him turn and flee! Wha for Scotland's king and law Freedom's sword will strongly draw, Freeman stand, or freeman fa'? Let him follow me! By oppression's woes and pains! Lay the proud usurpers low! Let us do, or die! CROMWELL AND KING CHARLES. 'Tis madness to resist or blame As if his highest plot SCOTLAND. I MIND it weel, in early date, When I was beardless, young, and blate, And first could thresh the barn; Or haud a yokin' at the pleugh; An' though forfoughten sair eneugh, Yet unco proud to learn! Even then, a wish (I mind its power), A wish that to my latest hour Shall strongly heave my breast That I for poor auld Scotland's sake Some usefu' plan or book could make, Or sing a sang at least. The rough burr-thistle spreading wide Amang the bearded bear, I turned the weedin'-heuk aside, BURNS. Like the hurricane eclipse Of the sun. — Again! again! again! Then ceased-and all is wail, Outspoke the victor then, As he hailed them o'er the wave, But yield, proud foe, thy fleet, Then Denmark blest our chief, As death withdrew his shades from the day; While the sun looked smiling bright YE MARINERS OF ENGLAND. YE mariners of England! The battle and the breeze: Your glorious standard launch again, And sweep through the deep, The spirit of your fathers Britannia needs no bulwark, Her march is o'er the mountain In both from age to age, thou didst rejoice, They were thy chosen music, Liberty! There came a tyrant, and with holy glee Thou foughtst against him, but hast vainly striven; Thou from thy Alpine holds at length art driven, Where not a torrent murmurs heard by thee. Of one deep bliss thine ear hath been bereft: Then cleave, O cleave to that which still is left; For, high-souled maid, what sorrow would it be That mountain floods should thunder as before, And ocean bellow from his rocky shore, And neither awful voice be heard by thee! WORDSWORTH. |