This is my country
From "The lay of the Last Minstrel,"Canto VI
"Breathes there the man with soul so dead
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land!
Whose heart hath ne'er within him 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 title, proud his name,
Boundless weath as wish can claim,
Despite those titles, power and pelf,
The wretch,concentrated all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonored, and unsung.
-Sir Walter Scott
"Breathes there the man with soul so dead
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land!
Whose heart hath ne'er within him 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 title, proud his name,
Boundless weath as wish can claim,
Despite those titles, power and pelf,
The wretch,concentrated all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonored, and unsung.
-Sir Walter Scott
1 Comments:
To whom was Sir Walter Scott referring?
A sad ending to the tale of a selfish human being.
Ann
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