Birthday Ode for 31st December, 1787

False flatterer, Hope, away!

Nor think to lure us as in days of yore:

We solemnize this sorrowing natal day,

To prove our loyal truth-we can no more,

And owning Heaven’s mysterious sway,

Submissive, low adore.

Ye honored, mighty Dead,

Who nobly perished in the glorious cause,

Your King, your Country, and her laws,

From great DUNDEE, who smiling Victory led,

And fell a Martyr in her arms,

(What breast of northern ice but warms!)

To bold BALMERINO’S undying name,

Whose soul of fire, lighted at Heaven’s high flame,

Deserves the proudest wreath departed heroes claim:

Nor unrevenged your fate shall lie,

It only lags, the fatal hour,

Your blood shall, with incessant cry,

Awake at last, th’ unsparing Power;

As from the cliff, with thundering course,

The snowy ruin smokes along

With doubling speed and gathering force,

Till deep it, crushing, whelms the cottage in the vale;

So Vengeance’ arm, ensanguin’d, strong,

Shall with resistless might assail,

Usurping Brunswick’s pride shall lay,

And STEWART’S wrongs and yours, with tenfold weight repay.

PERDITION, baleful child of night!

Rise and revenge the injured right

Of STEWART’S royal race:

Lead on the unmuzzled hounds of hell,

Till all the frighted echoes tell

The blood-notes of the chase!

Full on the quarry point their view,

Full on the base usurping crew,

The tools of faction, and the nation’s curse!

Hark how the cry grows on the wind;

They leave the lagging gale behind,

Their savage fury, pitiless, they pour;

With murdering eyes already they devour;

See Brunswick spent, a wretched prey,

His life one poor despairing day,

Where each avenging hour still ushers in a worse!

Such havock, howling all abroad,

Their utter ruin bring,

The base apostates to their God,

Or rebels to their King.

Note 1. The last birthday of Prince Charles Edward. [back]