“STAND! THE GROUND'S YOUR OWN, MY BRAVES.”
Sympathetic admiration for the air, “Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled,” (or “Bruce's address,” as it was commonly called), with the syllables of Robert Burns' silvery verse, lingered long in the land after the wars were ended. It spoke in the poem of John Pierpont, who caught its pibroch thrill, and built the metre of “Warren's Address at the Battle of Bunker Hill” on the model of “Scots wha hae.”
Stand! the ground's your own, my braves;
Will ye give it up to slaves?
Will ye look for greener graves?
* * * * * *
In the God of battles trust:
Die we may, or die we must,
But O where can dust to dust
Be consigned so well,
As where Heaven its dews shall shed,
On the martyred patriot's bed,
And the rocks shall raise their head
Of his deeds to tell?
This poem, written about 1823, held a place many years in school-books, and was one of the favorite school-boy declamations. Whenever sung on patriotic occasions, the music was sure to be “Bruce's Address.” That typical Scotch tune was played on the Highland bag-pipes long before Burns was born, and known as “Hey tuttie taite.” “Heard on Fraser's hautboy, it used to fill my eyes with tears,” Burns himself once wrote.
Rev. John Pierpont was born in Litchfield, Ct., April 6, 1785. He was graduated at Yale, 1804, taught school, studied law, engaged in trade, and finally took a course in theology and became a Unitarian minister, holding the pastorate of Hollis St. Church, Boston, thirty-six years. He travelled in the East, and wrote “Airs of Palestine.” His poem, “The Yankee Boy,” has been much quoted. Died in Medford, Mass., Aug. 26, 1866.
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