Classic Poem

Joy, joy in London now!
He goes, the rebel Wallace goes to death;
At length the traitor meets the traitor's doom,
Joy, joy, in London now!

He on a sledge is drawn,
His strong right arm unweapon'd and in chains,
And garlanded around his helmless head
The laurel wreath of scorn.

They throng to view him now
Who in the field had fled before his sword,
Who at the name of Wallace once grew pale
And falter'd out a prayer.

Yes! they can meet his eye,
That only beams with patient courage now,
Yes! they can look upon those manly limbs
Defenceless now and bound.

And that eye did not shrink
As he beheld the pomp of infamy;
Nor one ungovern'd feeling shook those limbs
When the last moment came.

What though suspended sense
Was by their legal cruelty revived;
What though ingenious vengeance lengthen life
To feel protracted death?

What though the hangman's hand
Grasped in his living breast the heaving heart?
In the last agony, the last, sick pang,
Wallace had comfort still.

He call'd to mind his deeds
Done for his country in the embattled field;
He thought of that good cause for which he died
And it was joy in death.

Go, Edward! triumph now!
Cambria is fallen, and Scotland's strength crush'd;
On Wallace, on Llewellyn's mangled limbs,
The fowls of Heaven have fed.

Unrivall'd, unopposed,
Go, Edward, full of glory to thy grave!
The weight of patriot blood upon thy soul,
Go, Edward, to thy God!