On The Setting Sun by Sir Walter Scott

(Photo credit: Danny S. via Wikipedia)

On The Setting Sun

Those evening clouds, that setting ray,
And beauteous tints, serve to display
Their great Creator’s praise;
Then let the short-lived thing call’d man,
Whose life’s comprised within a span,
To him his homage raise.

We often praise the evening clouds,
And tints so gay and bold,
But seldom think upon our God,
Who tinged these clouds with gold.

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The Rover by Sir Walter Scott

The Rover

A weary lot is thine, fair maid,
A weary lot is thine!
To pull the thorn thy brow to braid,
And press the rue for wine.
A lightsome eye, a soldier’s mien,
A feather of the blue,
A doublet of the Lincoln green –
No more of me you knew
My Love!
No more of me you knew.

‘This morn is merry June, I trow,
The rose is budding fain;
But she shall bloom in winter snow
Ere we two meet again.’
He turn’d his charger as he spake
Upon the river shore,
He gave the bridle-reins a shake,
Said ‘Adieu for evermore
My Love!
And adieu for evermore.’

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Breathes There The Man With Soul So Dead by Sir Walter Scott

Breathes there the man with soul so dead
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land!
Whose heart hath ne’er within him burned,
As home his footsteps he hath turned
From wandering on a foreign strand?
If such there breathe, go, mark him well;
For him no minstrel raptures swell;
High though his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim,
Despite those titles, power, and pelf,
The wretch, concentred all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonored, and unsung.

(From “The Lay of the Last Minstrel”)

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