And bid them backward turn and flee,
And quit the land of Liberty!
But, sad the day the shieling fell,
And buried Love in the happy dell;
Glencoe alone such woe could tell,
When deer took the place of the cottage belle.
Yet, while Ben Nevis towers on high,
Shall Scotland's War-worn banner fly!
"The spider's touch, how exquisitely fine,
Feels at each thread, and lives along the line."-Pope.
"God sees with equal eye, as God of all,
A hero perish, or a sparrow fall,
Atoms or systems into ruin hurled,
And now a bubble burst, and now a world."-Ibid.
"To Him no high, no low, no great, no small,
He fills, He bounds, connects and equals all."—Ibid.
UICK, bring the besom or the broom, An ugly spider's in the roomWeaving there its loathsome thread, Right above my damask bed.
One word did Betty need, no more,
For quick she left the bedroom door,
While fast the creature wove and spun
Its peerless meshes for the sun.
And bold Success stood smiling by,
To see an insect climb so high;
While patient Toil beneath it stood,
To help her poor industrious brood.
But just as it had reached the ceiling,
And for another buttress feeling,
Slap went the broom, and ruined all;
Alas! poor Toil gets many a fall.
How poor is patient Toil rewarded,
Or scientific Skill regarded,
By pampered Ease, or titled Pride,
When bustling Bettys are their guide.
Not only was the web undone,
When more than half was careful spun,
But Betty's hoof deprived of life
The weaver that had wove the strife.
Ugly spider! like ugly toad,
Wert never surely made by God?
For nothing good, for nothing holy,
But lead-eyed, morbid Melancholy."
The scene is changed; for lo! I saw
A monarch on a bed of straw;
No damask graced that lonely lair,
No Betty near, but sceptered care,
And, scowling in a corner, black Despair.
Twelve months denote the cycled year,
Six times Defeat had broke his spear,
Thought's deep-set coulter plowed his brow,
Despair sat grinning at him now.
"My Carrick spear at last I've lost,
Success or Fate leads Edward's host;
O God of battles! Freedom's hope!
No more against Thy will I'll cope.
From March to March,1 from May to May,
I've stood like hunted stag at bay;
Now fleeing from a bloodhound's fangs 2-
Ah! last and worst of all my pangs."
"Now Scotland," Bruce sighed, "fare thee well!
For Freedom drooped when Wallace fell,
Like him I've waved thy sword in vain,
On many a slippery, crimson plain.
From partial Fate no more I'll fly,
Here, on this straw, I've crawled to die;
My faithful band, where'er you be,
My will I leave-from Scotland flee.
By Might at last has Right been slain,
Poor Scotia bleeds at every vein;
Nor need I now the Roman's sword,
My spirit's gone, my blood is poured."
1 Bruce was crowned at Scone on the 27th March 1305.
was hunted with bloodhounds, and only escaped by wading down a stream and throwing them off the scent.
But, as his last despairing sigh
For Liberty was wafted high,
A lonely spider from a beam
Aroused his soul as from a dream.
As gloomy he lay on his pallet of straw,
His Fate from that beam hanging slender and long.
Desponding he gazed, till the spider he saw
Weave a lesson from heaven to show he was wrong.
Determined to win did the insect climb on,
Defeat seeming only a spur to its aim,
Until, as he gazed, all his languor was gone,
For the creature was crowning a monarch with shame.
Six times though it fell when close to its goal,
Like a needle it turned again to the pole;
The seventh time in triumph, Success, with a smile,
Said, "Look to that spider surmounting its toil.”
Then like a spark to powder given,
Or like a thunderbolt from heaven,
A fire flashed through the Patriot's brain,
And lit the hope to try again.
He spied it first begin to climb,
And fall, then rise up every time;
Three times twice it tried and fell
When lo, the seventh time broke the spell.
It reached the beam, at last it won,
And there successfully it spun.
"I thank Thee, God," the monarch said,
And to Jehovah grateful prayed.
"This spider has re-born my Hope,
That I like it again must cope;
And should Success upon me shine,
The glory and the praise be Thine."
Then like a vice whose screw is turned
In sacred Friendship's holy grasp,
A flame within his bosom burned,
When next his Carrick spear he clasped.
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