The Thistle of Scotland.
[This song, to the tune of "Black Joké," is given in Hogg's "Jacobite Relics," along with the following commentary:—"This is a modern song, and the only one that is in the volume, to my knowledge. It had no right to be here, for it is a national, not a Jacobite song; but I insert it out of a whim, to vary the theme a little. It is an excellent song, though professedly an imitation; and, when tolerably sung, never misses of having a good effect among a company of Scots people. It has been published as mine in several collections: I wish it were: but I am told that it was written by Mr. Sutherland, land-surveyor, a gentleman of whom I know nothing, save that he is the author of some other popular songs."—We cannot say what reliance is to be placed on this statement of the Shepherd's. But knowing his unfortunate disposition to cajollery in matters literary, we are quite prepared to believe, on very slender proof, that the Mr. Sutherland, the land-surveyor, the gentleman of whom he "knows nothing save that he is the author of some other popular songs," is a phantom of his own creating; and that the real author of the present song was the same who wrote "The Pilgrims of the Sun," "The Queen's Wake," and a variety of other Works.]
Let them boast of the country gave Patrick his fame,
Of the land of the ocean, and Anglian name,
With the red-blushing roses, and shamrock so green:
Far dearer to me are the hills of the North,
The land of blue mountains, the birth-place of worth;
Those mountains where freedom has fix'd her abode,
Those wide-spreading glens where no slave ever trode,
Where blooms the red heather and thistle so green.
Though rich be the soil where blossoms the rose,
And barren the mountains, and cover'd with snows,
Where blooms the red heather and thistle so green;
Yet, for friendship sincere, and for loyalty true,
And for courage so bold which no foe could subdue,
Unmatch'd is our country, unrivall'd our swains,
And lovely and true are the nymphs on our plains,
Where rises the thistle, the thistle so green.
Far-famed are our sires in the battles of yore,
And many the cairnies that rise on our shore,
O'er the foes of the land of the thistle so green;
And many a carnie shall rise on our strand,
Should the torrent of war ever burst on our land,
Let foe come on foe, as wave comes on wave,
We'll give them a welcome, we'll give them a grave,
Beneath the red heather and thistle so green.
O, dear to our souls, as the blessings of heaven,
Is the freedom we boast, is the land that we live in,
The land of red heather and thistle so green:
For that land and that freedom our fathers have bled,
And we swear by the blood that our fathers have shed,
No foot of a foe shall e'er tread on their grave;
But the thistle shall bloom on the bed of the brave,
The thistle of Scotland, the thistle so green.
