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Home  »  Familiar Quotations  »  5123 Sir Walter Sott 1771-1832 John Bartlett

John Bartlett (1820–1905). Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. 1919.

5123 Sir Walter Sott 1771-1832 John Bartlett

 
NUMBER:5123
AUTHOR:Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832)
QUOTATION: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 burn’d 1
As home his footsteps he hath turn’d
  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, concentred all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonour’d, and unsung. 2
ATTRIBUTION:Lay of the Last Minstrel. Canto vi. Stanza 1.
WORKS:Sir Walter Scott Collection.
 
Note 1.
Did not our heart burn within us while he talked with us by the way?—Luke xxiv. 32.

Hath not thy heart within thee burned
At evening’s calm and holy hour?
S. G. Bulfinch: The Voice of God in the Garden. [back]
Note 2.
See Pope, Quotation 326. [back]