Monday, November 30, 2009

O Caledonia!

A Happy St Andrew's Day to any Scots reading; instead of marking it with the traditional Saltire, here instead is an extract from "Lay of the Last Minstrel" by Sir Walter Scott:

O Caledonia! stern and, wild,
Meet nurse for a poetic child!
Land of brown heath and shaggy wood
Land of the mountain and the flood,
Land of my sires! what mortal hand
Can e'er untie the filial band,
That knits me to thy rugged strand!
Still, as I view each well-known scene,
Think what is now, and what hath been,
Seems as, to me of all bereft,
Sole friends thy woods and streams were left;
And thus I love them better still
Even in extremity of ill.
By Yarrow's streams still let me stray,
Though none should guide my feeble way.,
Still feel the breeze down Ettrick break,
Although it chill my wither'd cheek;
Still lay my head by Teviot Stone,
Though there, forgotten and alone,
The Bard may draw his parting groan.

1 comment:

Edwin Moore said...

I like the parting groan!

I also like james Joyce -

Poor sister Scotland! Her doom is fell;
She cannot find any more Stuarts to sell.