’TWAS a day of faith and flowers,
Of honour that could not die,
Of Hope that counted the hours,
Of sorrowing Loyalty:
And the _Blackbird_ sang in the closes,
The _Blackbird_ piped in the spring,
For the day of the dawn of the Roses,
The dawn of the day of the King!
White roses over the heather,
And down by the Lowland lea,
And far in the faint blue weather,
A white sail guessed on the sea!
But the deep night gathers and closes,
Shall ever a morning bring
The lord of the leal white roses,
The face of the rightful King?
_Red and White Roses_.
RED roses under the sun
For the King who is lord of land;
But he dies when his day is done,
For his memory careth none
When the glass runs empty of sand.
White roses under the moon
For the King without lands to give;
But he reigns with the reign of June,
With the rose and the Blackbird’s tune,
And he lives while Faith shall live.
Red roses for beef and beer;
Red roses for wine and gold;
But they drank of the water clear,
In exile and sorry cheer,
To the kings of our sires of old.
Red roses for wealth and might;
White roses for hopes that flee;
And the dreams of the day and the night,
For the Lord of our heart’s delight—
For the King that is o’er the sea.
_The Bonnie Banks o’ Loch Lomond_.
1746.
THERE’S an ending o’ the dance, and fair Morag’s safe in France,
And the Clans they hae paid the lawing,
And the wuddy has her ain, and we twa are left alane,
Free o’ Carlisle gaol in the dawing.
So ye’ll tak the high road, and I’ll tak the laigh road,
An’ I’ll be in Scotland before ye:
But me and my true love will never meet again,
By the bonnie, bonnie banks o’ Loch Lomond.
For my love’s heart brake in twa, when she kenned the Cause’s fa’,
And she sleeps where there’s never nane shall waken,
Where the glen lies a’ in wrack, wi’ the houses toom and black,
And her father’s ha’s forsaken.
While there’s heather on the hill shall my vengeance ne’er be still,
While a bush hides the glint o’ a gun, lad;
Wi’ the men o’ Sergeant Môr shall I work to pay the score,
Till I wither on the wuddy in the sun, lad!
So ye’ll tak the high road, and I’ll tak the laigh road,
An’ I’ll be in Scotland before ye:
But me and my true love will never meet again,
By the bonnie, bonnie banks o’ Loch Lomond.
_Kenmure_.
1715.
“THE heather’s in a blaze, Willie,
The White Rose decks the tree,
The Fiery Cross is on the braes,
And the King is on the sea!
“Remember great Montrose, Willie,
Remember fair Dundee,
And strike one stroke at the foreign foes
Of the King that’s on the sea.
“There’s Gordons in the North, Willie,
Are rising frank and free,
Shall a Kenmure Gordon not go forth
For the King that’s on the sea?
“A trusty sword to draw, Willie,
A comely weird to dree,
For the Royal Rose that’s like the snaw,
And the King that’s on the sea!”
He cast ae look across his lands,
Looked over loch and lea,
He took his fortune in his hands,
For the King was on the sea.
Kenmures have fought in Galloway
For Kirk and Presbyt’rie,
This Kenmure faced his dying day,
For King James across the sea.
It little skills what faith men vaunt,
If loyal men they be
To Christ’s ain Kirk and Covenant,
Or the King that’s o’er the sea.
_Culloden_.
DARK, dark was the day when we looked on Culloden
And chill was the mist drop that clung to the tree,
The oats of the harvest hung heavy and sodden,
No light on the land and no wind on the sea.
There was wind, there was rain, there was fire on their faces,
When the clans broke the bayonets and died on the guns,
And ’tis Honour that watches the desolate places
Where they sleep through the change of the snows and the suns.
Unfed and unmarshalled, outworn and outnumbered,
All hopeless and fearless, as fiercely they fought,
As when Falkirk with heaps of the fallen was cumbered,
As when Gledsmuir was red with the havoc they wrought.
_Ah_, _woe worth you_, _Sleat_, _and the faith that you vowed_,
_Ah_, _woe worth you_, _Lovat_, _Traquair_, _and Mackay_;
_And woe on the false fairy flag of Macleod_,
_And the fat squires who drank_, _but who dared not to die_!
Where the graves of Clan Chattan are clustered together,
Where Macgillavray died by the Well of the Dead,
We stooped to the moorland and plucked the pale heather
That blooms where the hope of the Stuart was sped.
And a whisper awoke on the wilderness, sighing,
Like the voice of the heroes who battled in vain,
“Not for Tearlach alone the red claymore was plying,
But to bring back the old life that comes not again.”
_The Last of the Leal_.