CXXXIV THEIR GROVES O’ SWEET MYRTLE Their groves o’ sweet myrtle let foreign lands reckon, Where bright-beaming summers exalt the perfume! Far dearer to me yon lone glen o’ green breckan, Wi’ the burn stealing under the lang, yellow broom; Far dearer to me are yon humble broom bowers, Where the blue-bell and gowan lurk lowly, unseen; For there, lightly tripping amang the white flowers, A-list’ning the linnet, aft wanders my Jean. Tho’ rich is the breeze in their gay, sunny vallies, And cauld Caledonia’s blast on the wave, Their sweet-scented woodlands that skirt the proud palace, What are they?--the haunt of the tyrant and slave! The slave’s spicy forests and gold-bubbling fountains The brave Caledonian views wi’ disdain: He wanders as free as the winds of his mountains, Save Love’s willing fetters--the chains o’ his Jean. _Robert Burns._ SCOTT CXXXV THE OUTCAST Breathes there the man, with soul so dead, Who never to himself hath said, This is my own, my native land! Whose heart hath ne’er within him burned, As home his footsteps he hath turned, From wandering on a foreign strand! If such there breathe, go, mark him well; From him no minstrel raptures swell; High though his titles, proud his name, Boundless his wealth as wish can claim; Despite those titles, power, and pelf, The wretch, concentred all in self, Living, shall forfeit fair renown, And, doubly dying, shall go down To the vile dust, from whence he sprung, Unwept, unhonour’d, and unsung. _Sir Walter Scott._ CXXXVI FLODDEN FIELD By this, though deep the evening fell, Still rose the battle’s deadly swell, For still the Scots around their king, Unbroken, fought in desperate ring. Where’s now their victor waward wing, Where Huntly, and where Home?-- O, for a blast of that dread horn, On Fontarabian echoes borne, That to King Charles did come, When Rowland brave, and Olivier, And every paladin and peer, On Roncesvalles died! Such blast might warn them, not in vain, To quit the plunder of the slain, And turn the doubtful day again, While yet on Flodden side, Afar, the Royal Standard flies, And round it toils, and bleeds, and dies, Our Caledonian pride!