For a' that, and a' that,
It's coming yet, for a' that, That man to man, the warld o'er,
Shall brothers be for a' that.
Ae fond kiss, and then we sever!
Ae fareweel, alas, for ever!
Deep in heart-wrung tears I'll pledge thee,
Warring sighs and groans I'll wage 1 thee.
Who shall say that fortune grieves him,
While the star of hope she leaves him?
Me, nae cheerfu' twinkle lights me;
Dark despair around benights me.
I'll ne'er blame my partial fancy,
Naething could resist my Nancy;
But to see her was to love her:
Love but her, and love for ever.
Had we never loved sae kindly,
Had we never loved sae blindly,
Never met-or never parted,
We had ne'er been broken-hearted.
Fare thee weel, thou first and fairest !
Fare thee weel, thou best and dearest !
Thine be ilka joy and treasure,
Peace, enjoyment, love, and pleasure.
Ae fond kiss, and then we sever;
Ae fareweel, alas, for ever!
Deep in heart-wrung tears I pledge thee,
Warring sighs and groans I'll wage thee.
1771-1832. (History, pp. 213-219.)
184. From 'THE LAY OF THE LAST MINSTREL.'
Breathes there a 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 burn'd,
As home his footsteps he hath turn'd
From wandering on a foreign strand?
If such there breathe, go mark him well:
For 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,2
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,3
Unwept, unhonour'd, and unsung.
O Caledonia! stern and wild,
Meet nurse for a poetic child!
1. Minstrel owes its form to the L. L. ministrellus, dim. of minister, and literally meaning a servant-such being formerly the position of bards in the great Houses.
2. Pelf: connected with pilfer, which itself seems to have originated in O. Fr. pelfre, booty.
3. Sprung: the double forms sang
sung, sprang sprung, drank drunk, &c., originated perhaps in the fact that the Old English in inflecting such preterites employed a in the 1st and 3rd pers. sing. and u in all the other parts. The tendency at present is to use the u form for the participle and the a form for the preterite.
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.
To mute and to material things,
New life revolving summer brings:
The genial call dead Nature hears,
And in her glory reappears.
But, oh! my country's wint'ry state,
What second spring shall renovate?
What powerful call shall bid arise
The buried warlike and the wise;
The mind that thought for Britain's weal,
The hand that grasped the victor's steel?
The vernal sun new life bestows,
E'en on the meanest flower that blows;
But vainly, vainly may he shine,
Where glory weeps o'er Nelson's shrine;
And vainly pierce the solemn gloom
That shrouds, O Pitt, thy hallowed tomb!
Deep graved in every British heart, Oh! never let those names depart! Say to your sons-Lo, here his grave! Who victor died on Gadite wave;
To him, as to the burning levin,'
Short, bright, resistless course was given;
Where'er his country's foes were found,
Was heard the fated thunder's sound.
Till burst the bolt on yonder shore,
Rolled, blazed, destroyed, and was no more.
Nor mourn ye less his perished worth,
Who bade the conqueror go forth,
And launched that thunderbolt of war
On Egypt, Hafnia,2 Trafalgar;
Who, born to guide such high emprize,
For Britain's weal was early wise;
Alas! to whom the Almighty gave,
For Britain's sins, an early grave;
His worth, who, in his mightiest hour,
A bauble held the pride of power,
Spurned at the sordid lust of pelf,
And served his Albion for herself;
Who, when the frantic crowd amain
Strained at subjection's bursting rein,
O'er their wild mood full conquest gained,
The pride he would not crush restrained,
Showed their fierce zeal a worthier cause,
And brought the freeman's arm to aid the freeman's laws.
Had'st thou but lived, though stripped of power,
A watchman on the lonely tower,
Thy thrilling trump had roused the land,
When fraud and danger were at hand;
By thee, as by the beacon-light,
Our pilots had kept course aright;
1. Levin, thunderbolt, an ordinary M. E. word; believed to have some connection with light and leam (see note 4, extract 15).
2. Hafnia, Copenhagen.
3. Bauble, fr. Fr. babiole, originally, it would appear, meant a child's toy (fr.
babe, baby). It was in old times peculiarly used of the professional Fool's badge of office, a stick with a round lump of lead hanging on the end.
4. Pilots: pilot comes from Du. piljoot, the origin of which is not clear (Diez).
As some proud column, though alone,
Thy strength had propped the tottering throne.
Now is the stately column broke,
The beacon-light is quenched in smoke,
The trumpet's silver sound is still,
The warder silent on the hill!
Oh! think how to his latest day,
When Death, just hovering, claimed his prey,
With Palinure's unaltered mood,
Firm at his dangerous post he stood;
Each call for needful rest repelled,
With dying hand the rudder held,
Till, in his fall, with fateful sway,
The steerage of the helm gave way;
Then, while on Britain's thousand plains,
One unpolluted church remains,
Whose peaceful bells ne'er sent around
The bloody tocsin's maddening sound,
But still upon the hallowed day,
Convoke the swains to praise and pray;
While faith and civil peace are dear,
Grace this cold marble with a tear,-
He who preserved them-Pitt, lies here!
Nor yet suppress the generous sigh,
Because his rival slumbers nigh;
Nor be thy requiescat dumb,
Lest it be said o'er Fox's tomb,-
For talents mourn, untimely lost,
When best employed and wanted most;
Mourn genius high and lore profound,
And wit that loved to play, not wound;
And all the reasoning powers divine,
To penetrate, resolve, combine;
And feelings keen and fancy's glow,-
They sleep with him who sleeps below;
5. Tocsin is made up from two words O. Fr. toquer: a bell (Diez).
== toucher, and sein or seint,
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