bonnet rev’rently is laid aside,
105 His lyart haffets wearing thin and bare; grey sidelocks
Those strains that once did sweet in ZION glide,
He wales a portion with judicious care,
‘And let us worship GOD!’ he says, with solemn air.
They chant their artless notes in simple guise,
110 They tune their hearts, by far the noblest aim;
Perhaps Dundee’s wild-warbling measures rise,
Or plaintive Martyrs, worthy of the name;
Or noble Elgin beets the heaven-ward flame, fans
The sweetest far of SCOTIA’S holy lays:
115 Compar’d with these, Italian trills are tame;
The tickl’d ears no heart-felt raptures raise;
Nae unison hae they, with our CREATOR’S praise. no, have
The priest-like Father reads the sacred page,
How Abram was the Friend of God on high;
120 Or, Moses bade eternal warfare wage
With Amalek’s ungracious progeny;
Or, how the royal Bard did groaning lye
Beneath the stroke of Heaven’s avenging ire;
Or Job’s pathetic plaint, and wailing cry;
125 Or rapt Isaiah’s wild, seraphic fire;
Or other Holy Seers that tune the sacred lyre.
Perhaps the Christian Volume is the theme:
How guiltless blood for guilty man was shed;
How He, who bore in Heaven the second name,
130 Had not on Earth whereon to lay His head;
How His first followers and servants sped;
The Precepts sage they wrote to many a land:
How he, who lone in Patmos banishè d,
Saw in the sun a mighty angel stand,
135 And heard great Bab’lon’s doompronounc’d by Heaven’s command.
Then kneeling down to HEAVEN’S ETERNAL KING,
The Saint, the Father, and the Husband prays:
Hope ‘springs exulting on triumphant wing,’1
That thus they all shall meet in future days,
140 There, ever bask in uncreated rays,
No more to sigh or shed the bitter tear,
Together hymning their CREATOR’S praise,
In such society, yet still more dear;
While circling Time moves round in an eternal sphere.
145 Compar’d with this, how poor Religion’s pride,
In all the pomp of method, and of art;
When men display to congregations wide
Devotion’s ev’ry grace, except the heart!
The POWER, incens’d, the Pageant will desert,
150 The pompous strain, the sacerdotal stole;
But haply, in some Cottage far apart,
May hear, well-pleas’d, the language of the Soul,
And in His Book of Life the Inmates poor enroll.
Then homeward all take off their sev’ral way;
155 The youngling Cottagers retire to rest: youthful
The Parent-pair their secret homage pay,
And proffer up to Heaven the warm request,
That ‘He who stills the raven’s clam’rous nest,
‘And decks the lily fair in flow’ry pride,
160 ‘Would, in the way His Wisdom sees the best,
‘For them and for their little ones provide;
‘But, chiefly, in their hearts with Grace Divine preside’.
From Scenes like these, old SCOTIA’S grandeur springs,
That makes her lov’d at home, rever’d abroad:
165 Princes and lords are but the breath of kings,
‘An honest man’s the noble work of GOD’;2
And certes, in fair Virtue’s heavenly road, verily
The Cottage leaves the Palace far behind;
What is a lordling’s pomp? – a cumbrous load,
170 Disguising oft the wretch of human kind,
Studied in arts of Hell, in wickedness refin’d!
O SCOTIA! my dear, my native soil!
For whom my warmest wish to Heaven is sent!
Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil
175 Be blest with health, and peace, and sweet content!
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,
180 And stand a wall of fire around their much-lov’d ISLE.
O THOU! who pour’d the patriotic tide,
That stream’d thro’ WALLACE’S undaunted heart,
Who dar’d to, nobly, stem tyrannic pride,
