Classic Poem

O CALEDONIA , can it be
A wonder that we love thee?
Tho' we be far removed from thee,
We place no land above thee
For tho' in foreign lands we dwell,
A sacred tie has bound us;
Our hearts can never lose the spell
Thy mountains threw around us.

And tho' thy breath is cold and keen,
And rugged are thy features,
Yet, O my country! thou hast been
The nurse of noble natures,
Who left us an inheritance—
A world of song and story,
A wealth of sturdy common-sense,
And doughty deeds of glory.

But Scotland! 'tis thy sense of worth
And moral obligations
Which makes thee mighty on the earth,
A ruler 'mong the nations.
Does not thine humblest peasant know
The truth of truths supernal—
That rank is but a passing show,
But Moral Worth 's eternal?

Scotland! the humblest son of thine
Is heir to living pages—
Heir to a lit'rature divine,
Bequeathed to all the ages—
Heir to a language void of art,
And rich with human feeling—
Heir to the language of the heart,
Its sweetest tones revealing—

Heir to those songs and ballads old,
Brimful of love and pity,
Which fall, like show'rs of living gold,
In many a homely ditty.
Oh, sing us songs of other days,
Of ruins old and hoary;
Oh, sing of lang syne's broomy braes,
And freedom's fields of glory!

Ah! we may leave our mountains high,
Our grand old hills of heather,
Yet song's the tie, the sacred tie,
Which binds our hearts together.