Robert Burns in Stirlingshire

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E. Mackay, 1899 - Stirlingshire (Scotland) - 158 pages
 

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Page 81 - Let him follow me ! By oppression's woes and pains By your sons in servile chains ! We will drain our dearest veins, But they shall be free ! Lay the proud usurpers low ! Tyrants fall in every foe ! Liberty's in every blow ! — Let us do or die...
Page 72 - See the front o' battle lour: See approach proud Edward's power, — Chains and slaverie! Wha will be a traitor knave? Wha can fill a coward's grave? Wha sae base as be a slave? Let him turn and flee! Wha for Scotland's king and law Freedom's sword will strongly draw, Freeman stand, or freeman fa?
Page 46 - The great misfortune of my life was to want an aim. I had felt early some stirrings of ambition, but they were the blind gropings of Homer's Cyclops round the walls of his cave.
Page 43 - ... giants, enchanted towers, dragons and other trumpery. This cultivated the latent seeds of poetry ; but had so strong an effect on my imagination, that to this hour, in my nocturnal rambles, I sometimes keep a sharp look-out in suspicious places; and though nobody can be more sceptical than I am in such matters, yet it often takes an effort of philosophy to shake off these idle terrors.
Page 44 - You know our country custom of coupling a man and woman together as partners in the labours of harvest. In my fifteenth autumn, my partner was a bewitching creature, a year younger than myself. My scarcity of English denies me the power of doing her justice in that language, but you know the Scottish idiom: she was a "bonnie, sweet, sonsie lass.
Page 39 - It is evident that you already possess a great variety of expression and command of the English language; you ought therefore to deal more sparingly, for the future, in the provincial dialect — why should you, by using that, limit the number of your admirers to those who understand the Scottish, when you can extend it to all persons of taste who understand the English language ? In my opinion you should plan some larger work than any you have as yet attempted.
Page 75 - Wha will be a traitor knave? Wha can fill a coward's grave? Wha sae base as be a slave? Let him turn and flee! Wha for Scotland's king and law Freedom's sword will strongly draw, Freeman stand or freeman fa', Let him follow me!
Page 45 - ... promises, kindly stepped in, and carried him away, to " where the wicked cease from troubling, and where the weary are at rest.
Page 74 - Wha can fill a coward's grave ? Wha sae base as be a slave ? Let him turn and flee ! Wha, for Scotland's king and law, Freedom's sword will strongly draw, Freeman stand, or freeman fa...
Page 51 - I had taken the last farewell of my few friends; my chest was on the road to Greenock: I had composed the last song I should ever measure in Caledonia, The Gloomy Night is Gathering Fast...

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