The Buchan sangster/Bloody Dundee

by John Longmuir

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BLOODY DUNDEE.

Tune—“Bonnie Dundee.”

A Monument dazzles in brass at Auld Deer,
In the chapel where surplice and altar appear,
To the tool of the tyrant—the foe of the free,
To Claverhouse Graham—to the bloody Dundee.

Oh, he was the Sportsman! Dragoons were his dogs,
That hunted our fathers o’er mountains and bogs,
Till the bible and swords of Drumclog made him flee,
When the speed of his charger saved bloody Dundee.

But, burning with vengeance to Cov’nant and Whig,
When aided by treach’ry at Bothwell’s old Brig,
He butchered the swordless, no quarter gave he—
A wolf among sheep was the bloody Dundee.

From the moss to his cottage he dragged godly Brown,
And scarcely allowed him in prayer to kneel down;
But growled with an oath that he preached on his knee,—
So mad a blasphemer was bloody Dundee.

He turned to his “Satans,”—to fire gave command;
But they drew not a trigger, they raised not a hand;
For the prayer of the Martyr has blinded each e’e,
And they heed not the voice of the bloody Dundee.

But Claver’se his pride and his passion restrained,
While he drew forth a pistol his butcheries had stained,
And the brains of his victim soon spatter the lea,
Then away with his “lambs” rode the bloody Dundee.

Now close to their mother her infants have crept,
As she bound up the fragments, then sat down and wept
Her wings o’er her brood in their terror spread she,
But Rinrory requited the bloody Dundee!

He tortured poor children until they revealed
The holes and the hags that their parents concealed;
The weakness of woman enliven'd his glee,
So kind and gallant was the bloody Dundee!

When James, as a Papist, forfaulted the throne,
His subjects rejoiced that the Darkness had flown;
The gleam of the Orange illumined the sea
And brought freedom in spite of the bloody Dundee.

But Claver'se has summoned the clans from the hills,
That the Lowlands may swallow "black Prelacy's pills;
For claymores can teach, and the axe make you see,
That justice and truth ride with bloody Dundee!

Say, wild Killiecrankie, shall Scotland hear mass,
And Protestants pine in Dunnottar and Bass?
No! William approaching makes bigotry flee,
And tyranny fall with the bloody Dundee.

Then Monuments garnish with thumbkin and chains,
To the Man whom the blood of our Martyrs bestains;
Till Buchan's wide plains, from the hills to the sea,
Shall shudder to mouband the bloody Dundee.