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Title: Caledonia
Author: Edward Doyle [
More Titles by Doyle]
I
In only Wallace and Paul Jones and Burns,
Does Caledonia, child of Erin, show
His mother's features, lit by soul to know
The Right Divine of freedom, when it yearns
For what exalts the human, or, it spurns
What bars its flight to truth--all stars aglow,
That form God's trail to joy for man below?--
Sole trail, as time, who peers through grief, discerns.
O Caledonia, by thy Burn's brave song,
And deeds of Wallace and Paul Jones for Right,
Thy mother knows thee in the dark of night,
And claps thee heart-close. She cries out: "Be strong,
Soul of my soul! though not a Boswell quite,
Still, be whole man! remember Glencoe's wrong."
II
Wake, Caledonia! though Macauley, Whigging,
Would ward the flames from scarring William's face,
So that, then, Cain might shriek,--here, take my place,
A fugitive and outcast, with no digging
To hide in, nor a rest for my fatiguing;
The mark on me, is but God's finger trace;
On you, 'tis God's whole hand!--Still, there's the blaze!
There's England's soul of merciless intriguing!
List! 'tis the bagpipes welcoming the guest.
See the assembly, dance and feast. Oh, watch
The open heart and flow of good old Scotch;
The English come, as friends, must have the best.
There, hospitality is at top notch,--
And so is treachery in Britain's breast.
III
The cock crows.--Is he dreaming? 'Tis dark still.
He crows again and now, from farm to farm,
His fellows echo far his dazed alarm
And flap of wings on fences. He is shrill
Because it is not dawn above the hill,
That wakes him, but the English, as they arm,
And murder sleep, that has no dream of harm,
In couch and crib,--to further England's will.
O Caledonia! with such lamp in hand
As Glencoe's horror, thou hast England true.
Why let Froude fiction haze thy vivid view?
Put not thy light out for sound sleep, but stand
And answer, when the mother, whom thou drew
Thy soul from, cries "Glencoe"! when Black and Taned.
[The end]
Edward Doyle's poem: Caledonia
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