5 SCOTTISH SONGS. THE BRUCE OF BANNOCKBURN. SCOTS, wha hae wi' Wallace bled, Or to victorie. Now's the day, and now's the hour; See approach proud Edward's power- By oppression's woes and pains, Lay the proud usurpers low! 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 : |