Tuesday 24 February 2015

Love of Country

Breathes there a man with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land;
Whose heart hath ne'er within burned,
As home his footsteps he hath turned
From wandering on a foreign strand?
If such there breathe, go, mark him well;
For him no minstrel raptures swell;
High though his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim,
Despite those titles, power and pelf,
The wretch, concentered all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust, from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonoured, and unsung.

— Sir Walter Scott

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