Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Scotland: Vols. VI–VIII. 1876–79.
Coila
By Robert Burns (17591796)
A
She ’s gotten poets o’ her ain,
Chiels wha their chanters winna hain,
But tune their lays,
Till echoes a’ resound again
Her weel-sung praise.
To set her name in measured style;
She lay like some unkenned-of isle
Beside New Holland,
Or whare wild-meeting oceans boil
Besouth Magellan.
Gied Forth and Tay a lift aboon;
Yarrow and Tweed, to monie a tune,
Owre Scotland rings;
While Irwin, Lugar, Ayr, and Doon,
Naebody sings.
Glide sweet in monie a tunefu’ line;
But, Willie, set your fit to mine,
And cock your crest,
We ’ll gar our streams and burnies shine
Up wi’ the best!
Her moors red-brown wi’ heather-bells,
Her banks and braes, her dens and dells,
Where glorious Wallace
Aft bure the gree, as story tells,
Frae southron billies.
But boils up in a spring-tide flood!
Oft have our fearless fathers strode
By Wallace’ side,
Still pressing onward, red-wat shod,
Or glorious died!
When lintwhites chant amang the buds,
And jinkin’ hares, in amorous whids,
Their loves enjoy,
While through the braes the cushat croods
With wailfu’ cry!
When winds rave through the naked tree;
Or frosts on hills of Ochiltree
Are hoary gray;
Or blinding drifts wild furious flee,
Darkening the day!