From scenes like these old Scotia's grandeur springs, That makes her loved at home, revered abroad; Princes and lords are but the breath of kings, “An honest man's the noblest work of God!" And certes, in fair Virtue's heavenly road, The cottage leaves the palace far behind;" What is a lordling's pomp?—a cumbrous load, Disguising oft the wretch of humankind, Studied in arts of hell, in wickedness refined! 171 O Scotia! my dear, my native soil! For whom my warmest wish to Heaven is sent, Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil Be blest with health, and peace, and sweet And, O, may Heaven their simple lives prevent From Luxury's contagion, weak and vile! Then, howe'er crowns and coronets be rent, A virtuous populace may rise the while, And stand a wall of fire around their much-loved isle. O Thou! who poured the patriotic tide, 180 That streamed through Wallace's undaunted Who dared to nobly stem tyrannic pride, O never, never Scotia's realm desert; But still the patriot and the patriot bard In bright succession raise, her ornament and guard! 1786. 189 Robert Burns. RESOLUTION AND INDEPENDENCE THERE was a roaring in the wind all night; broods; The Jay makes answer as the Magpie chatters; And all the air is filled with pleasant noise of waters. All things that love the sun are out of doors; moors The hare is running races in her mirth; run. I was a Traveller then upon the moor, I saw the hare that raced about with joy; I heard the woods and distant waters roar; 14 The pleasant season did my heart employ: But, as it sometimes chanceth, from the might And fears and fancies thick upon me came; Dim sadness-and blind thoughts, I knew not, nor could name. 28 I heard the skylark warbling in the sky; My whole life I have lived in pleasant thought, at all? 42 I thought of Chatterton, the marvellous Boy, The sleepless Soul that perished in his pride; Of Him who walked in glory and in joy Following his plough, along the mountain-side: By our own spirits are we deified: We Poets in our youth begin in gladness; But thereof come in the end despondency and madness. Now, whether it were by peculiar grace, striven, Beside a pool bare to the eye of heaven I saw a Man before me unawares: The oldest man he seemed that ever wore gray 49 hairs. 56 As a huge stone is sometimes seen to lie whence; So that it seems a thing endued with sense: Like a sea-beast crawled forth, that on a shelf Of rock or sand reposeth, there to sun itself; 63 Such seemed this Man, not all alive nor dead, As if some dire constraint of pain, or rage A more than human weight upon his frame had cast. 70 Himself he propped, limbs, body, and pale face, At length, himself unsettling, he the pond A gentle answer did the old Man make, 77 84 In courteous speech which forth he slowly drew: And him with further words I thus bespake, "What occupation do you there pursue? This is a lonesome place for one like you." Ere he replied, a flash of mild surprise Broke from the sable orbs of his yet-vivid eyes, 91 |