Of all comments on Edinburgh the best-known is Burns’s passionate salutation to the venerable city:—
Edina! Scotia’s darling seat!
All hail thy palaces and towers,
Where once beneath a monarch’s feet
Sat Legislation’s sovereign powers.
From marking wildly scattered flowers,
As on the banks of Ayr I strayed,
And singing, lone, the lingering hours,
I shelter in thy honoured shade.
Here wealth still swells the golden tide,
As busy trade his labour plies;
There Architecture’s noble pride
Bids elegance and splendour rise;
Here Justice, from her native skies,
High wields her balance and her rod;
There Learning, with his eagle eyes,
Seeks science in her coy abode.
There, watching high the least alarms,
Thy rough, rude fortress gleams afar,
Like some bold veteran grey in arms,
And marked with many a seamy scar:
The ponderous wall and massy bar,
Grim rising o’er the rugged rock,
Have oft withstood assailing war,
And oft repelled the invader’s shock.
With awe-struck thought, and pitying tears
I view that noble, stately dome,
Where Scotia’s kings of other years,
Famed heroes! had their royal home.
Alas, how changed the times to come!
Their royal name low in the dust!
Their hapless race wild-wandering roam,
Though rigid law cries out, ’Twas just!
Wild beats my heart to trace your steps,
Whose ancestors, in days of yore,
Through hostile ranks and ruined gaps
Old Scotia’s bloody lion bore:
Even I who sing in rustic lore,
Haply, my sires have left their shed,
And faced grim danger’s loudest roar,
Bold following where your fathers led!
Edina! Scotia’s darling seat!
All hail thy palaces and towers!
Where once beneath a monarch’s feet
Sat Legislation’s sovereign powers!
From marking wildly scattered flowers,
As on the banks of Ayr I strayed,
And singing, lone, the lingering hours,
I shelter in thy honoured shade.