(SCOTLAND)
By crag and lonely moor she stands,
This mother of half a world’s great men,
And kens them far by sea-wracked lands,
Or orient jungle or western fen.
And far out mid the mad turmoil,
Or where the desert places keep
Their lonely hush, her children toil,
Or wrapt in wide-world honor sleep.
By Egypt’s sands or western wave,
She kens her latest heroes rest,
With Scotland’s honor o’er each grave,
And Britain’s flag above each breast.
And some at home.—Her mother love
Keeps crooning wind-songs o’er their graves,
Where Arthur’s castle looms above,
Or Strathy storms or Solway raves.
Or Lomond unto Nevis bends
In olden love of clouds and dew;
Where Trosach unto Stirling sends
Greetings that build the years anew.
Out where her miles of heather sweep,
Her dust of legend in his breast,
’Neath agèd Dryburgh’s aisle and keep,
Her Wizard Walter takes his rest.
And her loved ploughman, he of Ayr,
More loved than any singer loved
By heart of man amid those rare,
High souls the world hath tried and proved;
Whose songs are first to heart and tongue,
Wherever Scotsmen greet together,
And, far-out alien scenes among,
Go mad at the glint of a sprig of heather.
And he her latest wayward child,
Her Louis of the magic pen,
Who sleeps by tropic crater piled,
Far, far, alas, from misted glen;