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WALLACE AND BRUCE.

I WILL sing of BRUCE and Wallace, Sons of Jove to help our need,

Then when Norman Edward lusted

For wide sway benorth the Tweed.

Doughty robbers were the Normans, In rude rapine born and bred, Bold as lion, fierce as tiger,

When they came with iron tread,

And with subtle fox-like wisdom, Wise to weave a web of lies, Where a lie might seem the shortest

Way to snatch a glittering prize.

English Edward from the Norman

Drew his state, and drew his blood,
Drew the despot-lust to trample
All free manhood in the mud.

When he found a stout gainsayer,
He would hang him for a knave;
When he found a weakling, he

Would gild the chain that bound the slave.

And he grew up with keen hunger

Of more land to swell his state;

And he forged the name of Scotland
In proud England's book of Fate.

'Tis the logic of all robbers,

Romans, Normans, to make better What they steal, and let the weak man Wisely wear the strong man's fetter.

When the good King Alexander,

Who made haughty Haco mourn,

Fell, to find a briny burial,

From the steep cliff of Kinghorn ;

When the Maiden-queen from Norway
Sailed and sickened on the sea,

And the crown without a wearer
Waited where the right might be,

Scotland lay defenceless, headless;
Then the robber knew his hour,

Like a hawk upon the pigeons

Down to swoop, and to devour.

With a train of clerks and lawyers,
And a venal Romish scribe,

To the castled steep of Norham

Edward came, with craft to bribe

Any basest Scottish lordling,

Norman-bred, that would kneel down,

Swearing fealty to a swindler

For the bauble of a crown.

Baliol took the bribe, as Clio,

Just recorder, set it down,

BALIOL REIGNS, THE TRAITOR-SLAVE,

WHO SOLD HIS PEOPLE FOR A CROWN.

He shall lick the foot that kicked him,
And with service cringing low,
He shall swallow down the spittle
Of his high contemptuous foe.

At Strathcathro, at Strathcathro,

Whelmed with shame and swift disaster,

He shall kiss the clay bare-headed,

And from England's haughty master

Beg his craven life. The crafty

Longshanks now had played his game, And Cimbric Wales and Celtic Albyn Bowed before the Norman name,

To his deeming. But there wanted
Much to make his deeming true;

He had juggled, not the people,

But a vile and venal crew,

Norman-bred, half-hearted lordlings,

Dangling round a stranger throne; But the people prayed and waited

For a leader of their own;

And God sent him.

WILLIAM WALLACE,

Starred with no heraldic pride,

But with proof of thews and sinews,
From the bosom of Strathclyde

Rose, a Scot with blood untainted,

And with heart unbribed to stand Stoutly 'gainst a thousand Edwards, For the honour of the land.

Sooth, he was a man to look to
In an hour of danger; tall,

Strong, broad-shouldered, well-compacted,
Grandly furnished forth with all