O Scotia[1] my dear, my native soil!
For whom my warmest wish to Heaven is sent!
Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil
Be blest with health, and peace, and sweet content! 175
And, O! may Heaven their simple lives prevent
From luxury's contagion, weak and vile!
Then, howe'er crowns and coronets be rent,
A virtuous populace may rise the while,
And stand a wall of fire around their much-loved Isle. 180
O Thou! who poured the patriotic tide
That streamed thro' Wallace's undaunted heart,[74]
Who dared to nobly stem tyrannic pride,
Or nobly die, the second glorious part,
(The patriot's God peculiarly Thou art, 185
His friend, inspirer, guardian, and reward!)
O never, never, Scotia's realm desert,
But still the patriot and the patriot-bard
In bright succession raise, her ornament and guard!
[*]In printing this poem, it has seemed best to follow the text as given in the scholarly Centenary Burns (1896), edited by Messrs. Henley and Henderson.
NOTE.—The Cotter's Saturday Night was written in 1785 or the beginning of 1786. In all English poetry there are few pictures of home life so charming as that portrayed in this poem. The stanza employed is the Spenserian stanza, named for Edmund Spenser, who first used it. The first eight lines have five feet each, while the last has six feet.
Cotter, as used by Burns, means peasant farmer.
[1.] Much respected friend, Robert Aiken, an early friend of the poet's, to whom the poem was inscribed.
[2.] Ween, think, fancy.
[3.] Sugh (pronounced much like sook, with the k softened; i.e. like such in German), wail, sough.
[4.] Frae, from.
[5.] Pleugh (the gh has a guttural sound), plough.