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1

SCOTTISH SONGS.

THE BRUCE OF BANNOCKBURN.

Scors, wha hae wi' Wallace bled,

Scots, wham Bruce has aften led;
Welcome to your gory bed,

Or to victorie.

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

See approach proud Edward's power—
Chains and slaverie!

Wha will be a traitor knave?
Wha can fill a coward's grave?
Wha sae base as be a slave?

Let him turn and flee!

Wha for Scotland's king and law

Freedom's sword will strongly draw,

Free-man stand, or free-man fa',

VOL. IV.

Let him follow me!

B

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

Lay the proud usurpers low!
Tyrants fall in every foe!

Liberty's in every blow!
Let us do, or die!

Of this martial song the poet says, "There is a tradition that 'Hey, tuttie, taitie!' was the march of Robert Bruce at the battle of Bannockburn. This thought, in my solitary wanderings, warmed me into a pitch of enthusiasm on the theme of liberty and independence, which I threw into a kind of Scottish ode fitted to the air, which one might suppose to be the gallant Royal Scot's address to his heroic followers on that eventful morning." By another account, Burns was overtaken by a tremendous storm of mingled lightning and rain among the Galloway mountains, and in the midst of the elemental commotion he conceived and composed the song. It would appear too that the poet was musing on the French Revolution and the war for the independence of Scotland at the same time. A halo, historical and poetical, has been shed over the field of Bannockburnover the hero who led, and the thirty thousand heroes who conquered: I will attempt no idle illustration of a subject which Barbour, Burns, and Scott have sung. The concluding verse is chiefly borrowed from Blind Harry's Wallace :

A false usurper sinks in every foe,

And Liberty returns with every blow.

A change was afterwards made in the original structure of the verse, so that it might correspond with the air of Lewie Gordon; this encumbered the simple beauty of the fourth line of each stanza.-I have adhered to the first version.

SAE FLAXEN WERE HER RINGLETS.

Sae flaxen were her ringlets,
Her eyebrows of a darker hue,

Bewitchingly o'er-arching

Twa laughing een o' bonnie blue.

Her smiling, sae wyling,

Wad make a wretch forget his woe;

What pleasure, what treasure,

Unto these rosy lips to grow!

Such was my Chloris' bonnie face,
When first her bonnie face I saw,

And aye my

Chloris' dearest charm,

She says she lo'es me best of a'.

Like harmony her motion;

Her pretty ancle is a spy

Betraying fair proportion,

Wad make a saint forget the sky.

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