It is now generally adopted, and the celebration of the Centenary of Burns’s birth was certainly held at the Crystal Palace, Sydenham, on January 25, 1859. Of all the Poems written by Burns no one is so grand, or so generally popular as Bruce’s address to his troops, which Burns is said to have composed as he rode home through a heavy storm. He sent the following draft of it to his friend Mr. George Thomson, in September, 1793, suggesting that the poem might be set to the old Scotch air HEY TUTTIE TAITTIE. BRUCE TO HIS TROOPS. On the Eve of the Battle of Bannockburn. (_As originally written by Burns._) Scots, 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 o’ battle lower: See approach proud Edward’s power―― Chains and slaverie! Wha will be a traitor-knave? Wha can fill a cowards 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’, Let him follow me? 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! Mr. Thompson, in acknowledging the Poem, remarked:―― “Your heroic ode is to me the noblest composition of the kind in the Scottish language. I happened to dine yesterday with a party of your friends to whom I read it. They were all charmed with it, entreated me to find out a suitable air for it, and reprobated the idea of giving it a tune so totally devoid of interest or grandeur as ‘Hey tuttie taittie.’ I have been running over the whole hundred airs, of which I lately sent you the list; and I think ‘Lewie Gordon’ is most happily adapted to your ode; at least with a very short variation of the fourth line, which I shall presently submit to you. There is in ‘Lewie Gordon’ more of the grand than the plaintive, particularly when it is sung with a degree of spirit which your words would oblige the singer to give it. I would have no scruple about substituting your ode in the room of ‘Lewie Gordon,’ which has neither the interest, the grandeur, nor the poetry that characterize your verses. Now the variation I have to suggest on the last line of each verse, the only line too short for the air, is as follows:―― Verse 1st, Or to _glorious_ victorie. 2nd, _Chains_――chains and slaverie. 3rd, Let him, _let him_ turn and flee. 4th, Let him _bravely_ follow me. 5th, But _they shall_, they shall be free. 6th, Let us, _let us_ do, or die!