COLLECTION OF BRITISH AUTHOR S. VOL. 546. THE POETICAL WORKS OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. II. WAR-SONG. 439 WAR-SONG. To horse! to horse! the standard flies, The Gallic navy stems the seas, The voice of battle's on the breeze, From high Dunedin's towers we come, A band of brothers true; Our casques the leopard's spoils surround, With Scotland's hardy thistle crown'd; Though tamely couch'd to Gallia's frown Their ravish'd toys though Romans mourn; Oh! had they mark'd the avenging call ** Disunion ne'er their ranks had mown. Shall we, too, bend the stubborn head, In Freedom's temple born, Dress our pale cheek in timid smile, Or brook a victor's scorn No! though destruction o'er the land The sun, that sees our falling day, Shall mark our sabres' * The royal colours. ** The allusion is to the massacre of the Swiss Guards, on the fatal 10th August 1792. It is painful, but not useless, to remark, that the passive temper with which the Swiss regarded the death of their bravest countrymen, mercilessly slaughtered in discharge of their duty, encouraged and authorized the progressive injustice, by which the Alps, once the seat of the most virtuous and free people upon the Continent, have at length been converted into the citadel of a foreign and military despot. A state degraded is half enslaved. |