The Vision
1.
Come hither ye dreamers of dreams,
Ye soothsayers, wizards and witches,
That puzzle the world with hard names,
And without any meaning make speeches:
Here's a lord in the north,
Near Edinburgh Forth,
Though little's been said of his name or his worth;
He's seen such a vision, no mortal can reach it,
I challenge the clan of Egyptians to match it.
2.
And first, in the dark it was told him,
Which might very well appall us,
That the world was a fighting of old time,
From Nimrod to Sardanapalus;
That it's all revelation,
You may pawn your salvation,
For the devil a history gives the relation;
But it's all in the deeps, no mortal can reach it,
We may challenge the clan of Egyptians to match it.
3.
Then Scotland comes next on the stage,
For in visions you must not be nice,
And a skip of three thousand years age,
Is nothing where men are concise;
I name it the rather
Because you may gather
How that every man is the son of his father;
A truth for the future no mortal can doubt,
Whatever they might before he found it out.
4.
But heark, now the wonders begin,
And take care lest the vision should fright ye;
For if it should make you unclean,
He has not told you how he would dight ye.
First the national church,
Left quite in the lurch,
Was a truckling down to the steeple and porch;
But what is still worse, she's afraid of her friends,
So fevers make frantic men hasten their ends.
5.
Was ever such conjuring known,
Or the church so clawed by the steeple;
Nonjurors are her champions grown,
And the prelatists vote for the people.
Protesters appear
And the Jacques they adhere,
And Antichrist votes the true church to secure,
O Scotland! Was ever such conjuring known,
That the mitre supports the same church pulled her down!
6.
Then the nation in sack-cloth appeared,
And the visionist sadly bewailed her;
For mischiefs the like were ne'er heard,
Her privilege of slavery failed her.
For the mob he complained
That being born chained,
Blessed bondage was lost and damned freedom remained,
So with liberty scared, and afraid to grow rich,
They sued for repentance in a dolorous speech.
7.
And first our amazement t'increase,
The soldiers disbanded appear,
Poor drudges put 'prentices to peace,
For want of the blessings of war;
For though it's in the book,
Yet the Scripture mistook,
When it told us, our swords should to plowshares be broke;
It might be long ago a happiness there,
But it's plain by the vision it's otherwise here.
8.
The merchants are next on the stage,
The enchantment has circled them in;
For fear they in wealth should engage,
They resolve they'll never begin;
The burghs are afraid
They shall have too much trade,
And the nation to plenty be safely betrayed.
So they gravely address, that to keep them secure,
As you find them, you leave them, both foolish and poor.
9.
The next is indeed a sad sight,
The like on't has rarely been known,
'T will ruin the country quite,
It will never recover its own;
The plowman's undone,
From father to son;
For a terrible drawback on corn will come on,
In plenty they'll ship it, be there never so much;
And to load us with money, sell all to the Dutch.
10.
O ye virgins! (both sexes) draw near,
And though it's but in spectrum shown,
In sympathy lend us a tear
As the case may some time be your own;
The ladies' condition
Deserves your compassion;
'Tis very severe to make beauty petition,
Yet here his strange tragedies turned to a jig,
That the men want employments, yet the ladies should beg.
11.
Then a crew of old sailors were brought,
At their true benefactors to rail;
That to fight for strange nations were bought
And this will cut off the entail.
They thought it was hard
The Dutch ships to discard;
And to force the poor Scots their own trade to regard,
For liberty claims a freedom to ill,
And it's hard to get money against a man's will.
12.
And now the exorcist in turn
Like a ghost in a circle arises,
Without any tears he can mourn;
He is ecstasies all and surprises;
But what wildest of all,
And does strangely appall,
Two hours he talked and said nothing at all,
But let drop a few hypocritical tears;
So the crocodile weeps on the carcass she tears.
13.
Then in strange Hebrew words he bewailed ye,
Though the jest was by few understood,
Tu quoque mi fili Squadrone,
Or in Scots, The Parliament's wood .
So Caesar they say,
Cried out in a fray,
When they killed him because he'd his country betray;
For Brutus his country's liberty sought;
Was a simile e'er so in happily brought?
14.
Thus he rummaged the histories old,
Like the tale of the bear and the fiddle,
For as 'twas unluckily told,
So the story broke off in the middle.
Some said my lord cried,
Though others denied;
Which matter of moment it's hard to decide;
But here's a more difficult matter remains,
To tell if he showed us less manners or brains.
Come hither ye dreamers of dreams,
Ye soothsayers, wizards and witches,
That puzzle the world with hard names,
And without any meaning make speeches:
Here's a lord in the north,
Near Edinburgh Forth,
Though little's been said of his name or his worth;
He's seen such a vision, no mortal can reach it,
I challenge the clan of Egyptians to match it.
2.
And first, in the dark it was told him,
Which might very well appall us,
That the world was a fighting of old time,
From Nimrod to Sardanapalus;
That it's all revelation,
You may pawn your salvation,
For the devil a history gives the relation;
But it's all in the deeps, no mortal can reach it,
We may challenge the clan of Egyptians to match it.
3.
Then Scotland comes next on the stage,
For in visions you must not be nice,
And a skip of three thousand years age,
Is nothing where men are concise;
I name it the rather
Because you may gather
How that every man is the son of his father;
A truth for the future no mortal can doubt,
Whatever they might before he found it out.
4.
But heark, now the wonders begin,
And take care lest the vision should fright ye;
For if it should make you unclean,
He has not told you how he would dight ye.
First the national church,
Left quite in the lurch,
Was a truckling down to the steeple and porch;
But what is still worse, she's afraid of her friends,
So fevers make frantic men hasten their ends.
5.
Was ever such conjuring known,
Or the church so clawed by the steeple;
Nonjurors are her champions grown,
And the prelatists vote for the people.
Protesters appear
And the Jacques they adhere,
And Antichrist votes the true church to secure,
O Scotland! Was ever such conjuring known,
That the mitre supports the same church pulled her down!
6.
Then the nation in sack-cloth appeared,
And the visionist sadly bewailed her;
For mischiefs the like were ne'er heard,
Her privilege of slavery failed her.
For the mob he complained
That being born chained,
Blessed bondage was lost and damned freedom remained,
So with liberty scared, and afraid to grow rich,
They sued for repentance in a dolorous speech.
7.
And first our amazement t'increase,
The soldiers disbanded appear,
Poor drudges put 'prentices to peace,
For want of the blessings of war;
For though it's in the book,
Yet the Scripture mistook,
When it told us, our swords should to plowshares be broke;
It might be long ago a happiness there,
But it's plain by the vision it's otherwise here.
8.
The merchants are next on the stage,
The enchantment has circled them in;
For fear they in wealth should engage,
They resolve they'll never begin;
The burghs are afraid
They shall have too much trade,
And the nation to plenty be safely betrayed.
So they gravely address, that to keep them secure,
As you find them, you leave them, both foolish and poor.
9.
The next is indeed a sad sight,
The like on't has rarely been known,
'T will ruin the country quite,
It will never recover its own;
The plowman's undone,
From father to son;
For a terrible drawback on corn will come on,
In plenty they'll ship it, be there never so much;
And to load us with money, sell all to the Dutch.
10.
O ye virgins! (both sexes) draw near,
And though it's but in spectrum shown,
In sympathy lend us a tear
As the case may some time be your own;
The ladies' condition
Deserves your compassion;
'Tis very severe to make beauty petition,
Yet here his strange tragedies turned to a jig,
That the men want employments, yet the ladies should beg.
11.
Then a crew of old sailors were brought,
At their true benefactors to rail;
That to fight for strange nations were bought
And this will cut off the entail.
They thought it was hard
The Dutch ships to discard;
And to force the poor Scots their own trade to regard,
For liberty claims a freedom to ill,
And it's hard to get money against a man's will.
12.
And now the exorcist in turn
Like a ghost in a circle arises,
Without any tears he can mourn;
He is ecstasies all and surprises;
But what wildest of all,
And does strangely appall,
Two hours he talked and said nothing at all,
But let drop a few hypocritical tears;
So the crocodile weeps on the carcass she tears.
13.
Then in strange Hebrew words he bewailed ye,
Though the jest was by few understood,
Tu quoque mi fili Squadrone,
Or in Scots, The Parliament's wood .
So Caesar they say,
Cried out in a fray,
When they killed him because he'd his country betray;
For Brutus his country's liberty sought;
Was a simile e'er so in happily brought?
14.
Thus he rummaged the histories old,
Like the tale of the bear and the fiddle,
For as 'twas unluckily told,
So the story broke off in the middle.
Some said my lord cried,
Though others denied;
Which matter of moment it's hard to decide;
But here's a more difficult matter remains,
To tell if he showed us less manners or brains.
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