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| EDINA! Scotia’s darling seat! | |
| All hail thy palaces and tow’rs, | |
| Where once, beneath a Monarch’s feet, | |
| Sat Legislation’s sov’reign pow’rs: | |
| From marking wildly scatt’red flow’rs, | 5 |
| As on the banks of Ayr I stray’d, | |
| And singing, lone, the lingering hours, | |
| I shelter in they honour’d shade. | |
| |
| Here Wealth still swells the golden tide, | |
| As busy Trade his labours plies; | 10 |
| There Architecture’s noble pride | |
| Bids elegance and splendour rise: | |
| Here Justice, from her native skies, | |
| High wields her balance and her rod; | |
| There Learning, with his eagle eyes, | 15 |
| Seeks Science in her coy abode. | |
| |
| Thy sons, Edina, social, kind, | |
| With open arms the stranger hail; | |
| Their views enlarg’d, their liberal mind, | |
| Above the narrow, rural vale: | 20 |
| Attentive still to Sorrow’s wail, | |
| Or modest Merit’s silent claim; | |
| And never may their sources fail! | |
| And never Envy blot their name! | |
| |
| Thy daughters bright thy walks adorn, | 25 |
| Gay as the gilded summer sky, | |
| Sweet as the dewy, milk-white thorn, | |
| Dear as the raptur’d thrill of joy! | |
| Fair Burnet strikes th’ adoring eye, | |
| Heaven’s beauties on my fancy shine; | 30 |
| I see the Sire of Love on high, | |
| And own His work indeed divine! | |
| |
| There, watching high the least alarms, | |
| Thy rough, rude fortress gleams afar; | |
| Like some bold veteran, grey in arms, | 35 |
| And mark’d with many a seamy scar: | |
| The pond’rous wall and massy bar, | |
| Grim-rising o’er the rugged rock, | |
| Have oft withstood assailing war, | |
| And oft repell’d th’ invader’s shock. | 40 |
| |
| With awe-struck thought, and pitying tears, | |
| I view that noble, stately Dome, | |
| Where Scotia’s kings of other years, | |
| Fam’d heroes! had their royal home: | |
| Alas, how chang’d the times to come! | 45 |
| Their royal name low in the dust! | |
| Their hapless race wild-wand’ring roam! | |
| Tho’ rigid Law cries out “’twas just!” | |
| |
| Wild beats my heart to trace your steps, | |
| Whose ancestors, in days of yore, | 50 |
| Thro’ hostile ranks and ruin’d gaps | |
| Old Scotia’s bloody lion bore: | |
| Ev’n I who sing in rustic lore, | |
| Haply my sires have left their shed, | |
| And fac’d grim Danger’s loudest roar, | 55 |
| Bold-following where your fathers led! | |
| |
| Edina! Scotia’s darling seat! | |
| All hail thy palaces and tow’rs; | |
| Where once, beneath a Monarch’s feet, | |
| Sat Legislation’s sovereign pow’rs: | 60 |
| From marking wildly-scatt’red flow’rs, | |
| As on the banks of Ayr I stray’d, | |
| And singing, lone, the ling’ring hours, | |
| I shelter in thy honour’d shade. | |
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