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| THERE was once a day, but old Time wasythen young, | |
| That brave Caledonia, the chief of her line, | |
| From some of your northern deities sprung, | |
| (Who knows not that brave Caledonia’s divine?) | |
| From Tweed to the Orcades was her domain, | 5 |
| To hunt, or to pasture, or do what she would: | |
| Her heav’nly relations there fixed her reign, | |
| And pledg’d her their godheads to warrant it good. | |
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| A lambkin in peace, but a lion in war, | |
| The pride of her kindred, the heroine grew: | 10 |
| Her grandsire, old Odin, triumphantly swore,— | |
| “Whoe’er shall provoke thee, th’ encounter shall rue!” | |
| With tillage or pasture at times she would sport, | |
| To feed her fair flocks by her green rustling corn; | |
| But chiefly the woods were her fav’rite resort, | 15 |
| Her darling amusement, the hounds and the horn. | |
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| Long quiet she reigned; till thitherward steers | |
| A flight of bold eagles from Adria’s strand: | |
| Repeated, successive, for many long years, | |
| They darken’d the air, and they plunder’d the land: | 20 |
| Their pounces were murder, and terror their cry, | |
| They’d conquer’d and ruin’d a world beside; | |
| She took to her hills, and her arrows let fly, | |
| The daring invaders they fled or they died. | |
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| The Cameleon-Savage disturb’d her repose, | 25 |
| With tumult, disquiet, rebellion, and strife; | |
| Provok’d beyond bearing, at last she arose, | |
| And robb’d him at once of his hopes and his life: | |
| The Anglian lion, the terror of France, | |
| Oft prowling, ensanguin’d the Tweed’s silver flood; | 30 |
| But, taught by the bright Caledonian lance, | |
| He learnèd to fear in his own native wood. | |
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| The fell Harpy-raven took wing from the north, | |
| The scourge of the seas, and the dread of the shore; | |
| The wild Scandinavian boar issued forth | 35 |
| To wanton in carnage and wallow in gore: | |
| O’er countries and kingdoms their fury prevail’d, | |
| No arts could appease them, no arms could repel; | |
| But brave Caledonia in vain they assail’d, | |
| As Largs well can witness, and Loncartie tell. | 40 |
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| Thus bold, independent, unconquer’d, and free, | |
| Her bright course of glory for ever shall run: | |
| For brave Caledonia immortal must be; | |
| I’ll prove it from Euclid as clear as the sun: | |
| Rectangle-triangle, the figure we’ll chuse: | 45 |
| The upright is Chance, and old Time is the base; | |
| But brave Caledonia’s the hypothenuse; | |
| Then, ergo, she’ll match them, and match them always. | |
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