The Book of Scottish Song/Land of my Fathers
Land of my Fathers.
[Written by Dr. John Leyden. Set to music by R. A. Smith.]
Land of my fathers! though no mangrove here
O'er thy blue streams her flexile branches rear,
Nor scaly palm her finger'd scions shoot,
Nor lucious guava wave her yellow fruit,
Nor golden apples glimmer from the tree;
Land of dark heaths and mountains, thou art free
Free as his lord the peasant treads the plain,
And heaps his harvest on the groaning wain.
Proud of his laws, tenacious of his right,
And vain of Scotia's old unconquer'd might:
Dear native valleys! may ye long retain
The charter'd freedom of the mountain swain.
Long, 'mid your sounding glades, in union sweet,
May rural innocence and beauty meet;
And still be duly heard, at twilight calm,
From every cot the peasant's chanted psalm!
Then, Jedworth, though thy ancient choirs shall fade,
And time lay bare each lofty colonnade,
From the damp roof the massy sculptures die,
And in their vaults thy rifted arches lie;
Still in these vales shall angel harps prolong,
By Jed's pure stream, a sweeter evening song
Than long processions, once, with mystic zeal,
Pour'd to the harp and solemn organ's peal.