C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
Flora MacIvor’s Song
By Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832)
T
But more dark is the sleep of the sons of the Gael.
A stranger commanded,—it sunk on the land,
It has frozen each heart and benumbed every hand!
The bloodless claymore is but reddened with rust;
On the hill or the glen if a gun should appear,
It is only to war with the heath-cock or deer.
Let a blush or a blow be the meed of their verse!
Be mute every string, and be hushed every tone,
That shall bid us remember the fame that is flown.
The morn on our mountains is dawning at last!
Glenaladale’s peaks are illumed with the rays,
And the streams of Glenfinnan leap bright in the blaze.
In the blush of the dawning the S
Wide, wide on the winds of the north let it fly,
Like the sun’s latest flash when the tempest is nigh!
Need the harp of the aged remind you to wake?
That dawn never beamed on your forefathers’ eye
But it roused each high chieftain to vanquish or die.
Proud chiefs of Clan-Ranald, Glengarry, and Sleat!
Combine like three streams from one mountain of snow,
And resistless in union rush down on the foe.
Place thy targe on thy shoulder and burnish thy steel!
Rough Keppoch, give breath to thy bugle’s bold swell,
Till far Coryarrick resound to the knell!
Let the stag in thy standard bound wild in the gale!
May the race of Clan-Gillian, the fearless and free,
Remember Glenlivat, Harlaw, and Dundee!
Such heroes to earth, and such martyrs to heaven,
Unite with the race of renowned Rorri More,
To launch the long galley and stretch to the oar!
The yew-crested bonnet o’er tresses of gray!
How the race of wronged Alpine and murdered Glencoe
Shall shout for revenge when they pour on the foe!
Resume the pure faith of the great Callum-More!
Mac-Niel of the Islands, and Moy of the Lake,
For honor, for freedom, for vengeance awake!
Brave sons of the mountain, the frith, and the lake!
’Tis the bugle—but not for the chase is the call;
’Tis the pibroch’s shrill summons—but not to the hall.
When the banners are blazing on mountain and heath;
They call to the dirk, the claymore, and the targe,
To the march and the muster, the line and the charge.
May the blood through his veins flow like currents of fire!
Burst the base foreign yoke as your sires did of yore!
Or die, like your sires, and endure it no more!