Welcome to your gory bed, Or to glorious victorie! Now's the day, and now's the hour- See approach proud Edward's power- Wha will be a traitor-knave? Traitor coward! turn and flee! Wha for Scotland's king and law By oppression's woes and pains! But they shall be-shall be free! Lay the proud usurpers low! Tyrants fall in every foe! Liberty's in every blow! Forward let us do, or die! BEHOLD THE HOUR. Tune-" Oran-gaoil." ["The following song I have composed for the Highland air that you tell me in your last you have resolved to give a place to in your book. I have this moment finished the song, so you have it glowing from the mint." These are the words of Burns to Thomson: he might have added that the song was written on the meditated voyage of Clarinda to the West Indies, to join her husband.] BEHOLD the hour, the boat arrive; Thou goest, thou darling of my heart! Sever'd from thee can I survive? But fate has will'd, and we must part. I'll often greet this surging swell, Yon distant isle will often hail : |