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[About 1688]
TO the lords of convention ’t was Claverhouse spoke, | |
| “Ere the king’s crown shall fall, there are crowns to be broke; | |
| So let each cavalier who loves honor and me | |
| Come follow the bonnets of bonnie Dundee!” | |
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| Come fill up my cup, come fill up my can; | 5 |
| Come saddle your horses, and call up your men; | |
| Come open the Westport and let us gang free, | |
| And it ’s room for the bonnets of bonnie Dundee! | |
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| Dundee he is mounted, he rides up the street, | |
| The bells are rung backward, the drums they are beat; | 10 |
| But the provost, douce man, said, “Just e’en let him be, | |
| The gude toun is well quit of that deil of Dundee!” | |
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| As he rode doun the sanctified bends of the Bow, | |
| Ilk carline was flyting and shaking her pow; | |
| But the young plants of grace they looked cowthie and slee, | 15 |
| Thinking, Luck to thy bonnet, thou bonnie Dundee! | |
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| With sour-featured whigs the Grass-market was thranged, | |
| As if half the west had set tryst to be hanged; | |
| There was spite in each look, there was fear in each ee, | |
| As they watched for the bonnets of bonnie Dundee. | 20 |
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| These cowls of Kilmarnock had spits and had spears, | |
| And lang-hafted gullies to kill cavaliers; | |
| But they shrunk to close-heads, and the causeway was free | |
| At the toss of the bonnet of bonnie Dundee. | |
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| He spurred to the foot of the proud castle rock, | 25 |
| And with the gay Gordon he gallantly spoke: | |
| “Let Mons Meg and her marrows speak twa words or three, | |
| For the love of the bonnet of bonnie Dundee.” | |
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| The Gordon demands of him which way he goes. | |
| “Where’er shall direct me the shade of Montrose! | 30 |
| Your grace in short space shall hear tidings of me, | |
| Or that low lies the bonnet of bonnie Dundee. | |
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| “There are hills beyond Pentland and lands beyond Forth; | |
| If there ’s lords in the Lowlands, there ’s chiefs in the north; | |
| There are wild Duniewassals three thousand times three | 35 |
| Will cry ‘Hoigh!’ for the bonnet of bonnie Dundee. | |
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| “There ’s brass on the target of barkened bull-hide, | |
| There ’s steel in the scabbard that dangles beside; | |
| The brass shall be burnished, the steel shall flash free, | |
| At a toss of the bonnet of bonnie Dundee. | 40 |
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| “Away to the hills, to the caves, to the rocks, | |
| Ere I own an usurper I ’ll couch with the fox; | |
| And tremble, false whigs, in the midst of your glee, | |
| You have not seen the last of my bonnet and me.” | |
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| He waved his proud hand, and the trumpets were blown, | 45 |
| The kettle-drums clashed, and the horsemen rode on, | |
| Till on Ravelston’s cliffs and on Clermiston’s lea | |
| Died away the wild war-notes of bonnie Dundee. | |
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| Come fill up my cup, come fill up my can; | |
| Come saddle the horses, and call up the men; | 50 |
| Come open your doors and let me gae free, | |
| For it ’s up with the bonnets of bonnie Dundee! | |
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