And plants the oft-contested gem,
On Freedom's sacred diadem.
Ask, where is now Egyptian Thebes?
Or Nineveh's marauding tribes ?—
Assyria's revengeful hordes?
Or Venice with her pirate lords?—
Where classic Greece? whose eye of fire
Was dyed by rich imperial Tyre,-
Where Carthagena's heart of stone?
Alas! like Rome's proud priesthood, flown!
When Freedom fell their pow'r was gone!
Their Benefactor trampled on !——
Like France, tvo martial, in their gains,
These conquered, Britain peoples plains,
And, unless other zones shall rise,
She'll people half, beneath the skies,
And still she keeps her island home,
As free as roe's that o'er her roam;
Ay! that she means to keep it too,
(Let tyrants say—or let them do,)
Her volunteers can show,
The flame that to Dun-Edin flew,
Reveals the fire below:
That wave which like a breaker rose,
Is but the flood that endless flows,
When Danger's blast doth blow,
To dash a hostile force away-
With gushing blood instead of spray;
Free, as her ceaseless breakers roll,
Which force nor fraud can e'er control,
They never rise, but with the storm,
The louder gale, the wilder form,
And as the whirlwind's battles roar,
Their native grandeur swells the more.
See! how in streams they reach their post,
To prove a strong defensive host,
Which hurries fast across the green,
Like swarming bees around their Queen!
From East to West, from South to North,
The gath'ring flood comes streaming forth,
1 Tyrian purple was the famous dye of the ancients.
With tartan kilt;-in ev'ry hue,
From lightest grey, to darkest blue;
And wheeling in their native pride,
The Scarlet Mounted, fearless ride;
From mountain, glen, and distant plain,
Old Scotia's sons come thick as rain,
O'er highland heath, and craggy way-
They rush to keep their trysted day,
From William's fort to Inverness,
Through Scotland's glen they anxious press,
Swelled from the braes of red Lochiel,
With Invergarry's thirsty steel,
As if Coomassie's ambushed foe
Was lurking in the plains below,
And not Great Britain's peaceful Queen,
To welcome them on Arthur's green;
From Inverary and Loch Goil,
Through Devil's Glen1 and Aberfoyle,
From busy Clyde and lone Loch Long,
They waft along my patriot song.
From rugged slopes of deep Loch Fyne,
They pour to keep their trysted time,
Where, mirrored in the sea-born lake,
The stag is seen his thirst to slake,
Inverted in the mountain stream,
As if it were a fairy dream,
While, streaming down each rocky glen,
The loch seemed filled with armèd men,
Still pouring down, their tryst to keep,
They pass Ben Lomond's rugged steep,
Whose hoary, mist-crowned, pine-clad height
Seemed sentinelled to watch a fight,
And, marching past her waving shores,
The loyal stream still eastward pours,
Encouraged by her sister's smile,
When passing lonely Ellen's isle,
Where clear and deep Loch Katrine fills
The tubes of health from hundred hills.
1 Devil's Glen, a lonely and rugged glen betwixt the heads of Loch Fyne and Loch Goil.
Yes! sea-like fount of civic 1 life,
She also fed the tubes of strife,
While pouring health through iron veins,
Direct from Heaven's blessed rains,
Unsoiled by man-whose baffled skill
Leaves flocks to graze the rugged hill,
Proving, worth, in Peace or War,
Comes pouring from the hills afar!
Not manured soil, nor crowded town,
But from the rocks and heather brown.
From crag to crag the tartans leap,
When pouring down Ben Ledi's steep,
In file they cross the "Brig 2 o' Turk,"
Which, scowling, feels the railway's work,
When Sasenachs, with joyous hum,
From glades of merry England come,
And wander round the mountains blue,
Or pass the far-famed Trossachs through,
Where bold Rob Roy was wont to roam,
Their native King,-without a home.
The infant Forth is cradled there,
Where rise Ben Ledi's brow in air,
Which, peering, fain would catch the view,
And, smiling, see our Queen's Review.
The half-grown Forth at Stirling's bridge,
And noble Tay from Lui's ridge,
Are pouring onward to the sea,
Past Aberdour and proud Dundee,
So, from the thousand hills between,
Come, pouring, men on Arthur's green,—
But, every mountain, stream, and glen,
Are breathing loyal, armèd men,
Trusting in their Father, God,
That they would rather stain the sod
1 Loch Katrine, as is well known, supplies Glasgow with an abundant supply of excellent water, an incalculable benefit to such a large community, and a noble example to those peddling cities which persist in getting an unnatural and unhealthy supply of water from manured arable soil, which, for all domestic purposes, is the very watershed to be avoided.
A lonely bridge near the base of Ben Ledi.
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