Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Scotland: Vols. VI–VIII. 1876–79.
The Tears of Scotland
By Tobias George Smollett (1721–1771)M
Thy banished peace, thy laurels torn!
Thy sons, for valor long renowned,
Lie slaughtered on their native ground.
Thy hospitable roofs no more
Invite the stranger to the door;
In smoky ruins sunk they lie,
The monuments of cruelty.
His all become the prey of war,
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;
Thy infants perish on the plain.
Through the wide-spreading waste of time,
Thy martial glory, crowned with praise,
Still shone with undiminished blaze?
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.
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,
While the pale phantoms of the slain
Glide nightly o’er the silent plain.
Accursed to ages yet unborn!
The sons against their fathers stood,
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.
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,
She views the shades of night descend,
And, stretched beneath the inclement skies,
Weeps o’er her tender babes, and dies.
And unimpaired remembrance reigns,
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
Thy banished peace, thy laurels torn!