Like some bold vet'ran, gray in arms,
And mark'd with many a seamy scar;
The pond'rous wall and massy bar,
Grim-rising o'er the rugged rock,
Have oft withstood assailing war,
And oft repell'd the invader's shock.

VI.

With awe-struck thought, and pitying tears,
I view that noble, stately dome,
Where Scotia's kings, of other years,

Fam'd heroes! had their royal home:
Alas! how chang'd the times to come;
Their royal name low in the dust!
Their hapless race wild-wand'ring roam!
Tho' rigid law cries out, "Twas just.

VII.

Wild beats my heart to trace your steps,
Whose ancestors. in days of yore,
Thro' hostile ranks, and ruin'd gaps,
Old Scotia's bloody lion bore:

Ev'n I, who sing in rustic lore,

Haply my sires have left their shed, And fac'd grim Danger's loudest roar, Bold following where your fathers led!

VIII.

Edina! Scotia's darling seat!

All hail thy palaces and tow'rs, Where, once beneath a monarch's feet, Sat legislation's sov'reign pow'rs!

From marking wildly-scatter'd flow'rs, As on the banks of Ayr I stray'd, And singing, lone, the ling'ring hours, I shelter in thy honor'd share.

BOOK V.

SONGS AND BALLADS

A VISION.

As I stood on yon roofless tower,

Where the wa'-flower scents the dewy air, Where the howlet mourns in her ivy bower, And tells the midnight moon her care:

The winds were laid, the air was still,
The stars they shot along the sky;
The fox was howling on the hill,
And the distant-echoing glens reply.

The stream, adown its hazelly path,
Was rushing by the ruin'd wa's,
Hasting to join the sweeping Nith,
Whase distant roaring swells and fa's.

The cauld blue north was streaming forth
Her lights, wi' hissing, eerie din;
Athart the lift they start and shift,
Like Fortune's favors, tint as win.

By heedless chance I turn'd my eyes,
And by the moonbeam, shook, to see

A stern and stalwart ghaist arise,
Attir'd as minstrels wont to be.

Had I statue been o' stane,

His darin' look had daunted me:
And on his bonnet grav'd was plain,
The sacred posy - Libertie!

And frae his harp sic strains did flow

Might rous'd the slumbering dead to hear;

But, oh! it was a tale of wo,

As ever met a Briton's ear.

He sang wi' joy his former day,

He, weeping, wail'd his latter times;
But what he said it was nae play,

I winna ventur't in my rhymes.*

The scenery, so finely described in this poem, is taken from nature. The poet is supposed to be musing, by night, on the banks of the Cluden, near the ruins of Lincluden Abbey, of which some account is given in Pennant's Tour and Grose's Antiquities. It is to be regretted that he suppressed the song of Libertie. From the resources of his genius, and the grandeur and solemnity of the preparation, something might have been anticipated, equal, if not superior, to the Address of Bruce to his Army, to the Song of Death, or to the fervid and noble description of the Dying Soldier in the Field of Battle.

BANNOCK BURN.

ROBERT BRUCE'S ADDRESS TO HIS ARMY

Scors, wha hae wi' Wallace bled,
Scots, wham Bruce has aften led;
Welcome to your gory bed,
Or to glorious victorie.

Now's the day, and now's the hour;
See the front of battle lower;

See approach proud Edward's power-
Edward! chains! and slaverie!

Wha will be a traitor knave?

Wha can till a coward's grave?

Wha sae base as be a slave?

Traitor! coward! turn and flee!

Wha for Scotland's king and law
Freedom's sword will strongly draw,
Freeman stand, or freeman fa'?
Caledonian! on wi' me!

By oppression's woes and pains!
By your sons in servile chains!
We will drain our dearest veins,

But they shall be- shall be free!

Lay the proud usurpers low:
Tyrants fall in every foe!
Liberty's in every blow!

Forward! let us do, or die!