| |
| MOURN, hapless Caledonia, mourn | |
| Thy banished peace, thy laurels torn! | |
| Thy sons, for valor long renowned, | |
| Lie slaughtered on their native ground. | |
| Thy hospitable roofs no more | 5 |
| Invite the stranger to the door; | |
| In smoky ruins sunk they lie, | |
| The monuments of cruelty. | |
| |
| The wretched owner sees afar | |
| His all become the prey of war, | 10 |
| Bethinks him of his babes and wife, | |
| Then smites his breast, and curses life. | |
| Thy swains are famished on the rocks, | |
| Where once they fed their wanton flocks; | |
| Thy ravished virgins shriek in vain; | 15 |
| Thy infants perish on the plain. | |
| |
| What boots it then, in every clime, | |
| Through the wide-spreading waste of time, | |
| Thy martial glory, crowned with praise, | |
| Still shone with undiminished blaze? | 20 |
| Thy towering spirit now is broke, | |
| Thy neck is bended to the yoke: | |
| What foreign arms could never quell, | |
| By civil rage and rancor fell. | |
| |
| The rural pipe and merry lay | 25 |
| No more shall cheer the happy day; | |
| No social scenes of gay delight | |
| Beguile the dreary winter night: | |
| No strains but those of sorrow flow, | |
| And naught is heard but sounds of woe, | 30 |
| While the pale phantoms of the slain | |
| Glide nightly o’er the silent plain. | |
| |
| O baneful cause! O fatal morn, | |
| Accursed to ages yet unborn! | |
| The sons against their fathers stood, | 35 |
| The parent shed his children’s blood: | |
| Yet, when the rage of battle ceased, | |
| The victor’s soul was not appeased; | |
| The naked and forlorn must feel | |
| Devouring flames and murdering steel. | 40 |
| |
| The pious mother, doomed to death, | |
| Forsaken, wanders o’er the heath; | |
| The bleak wind whistles round her head, | |
| Her helpless orphans cry for bread. | |
| Bereft of shelter, food, and friend, | 45 |
| She views the shades of night descend, | |
| And, stretched beneath the inclement skies, | |
| Weeps o’er her tender babes, and dies. | |
| |
| Whilst the warm blood bedews my veins, | |
| And unimpaired remembrance reigns, | 50 |
| Resentment of my country’s fate | |
| Within my filial breast shall beat; | |
| And, spite of her insulting foe, | |
| My sympathizing verse shall flow. | |
| Mourn, hapless Caledonia, mourn | 55 |
| Thy banished peace, thy laurels torn! | |
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