Glen Collection of printed music > Printed text > Illustrated book of Scottish songs from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century

MILITARY AND PATRIOTIC SONGS. 183
Far-famed are our sires in the battles of yore,
And many the cairnies that rise on our shore
O'er the foes of the land of the thistle so green ;
And many a eairnie shall rise on our strand,
Should the torrent of war ever burst on our land.
Let foe come on foe, as wave comes on wave.
We'll give them a welcome, we'll give them a grave
Beneath the red heather and thistle so green.
Oh, dear to ou.r souls as the blessings of heaven,
Is the freedom we boast, is the land that we live in,
The land of red heather and thistle so green :
For that land and that freedom our fathers have bled.
And we swear by the blood that our fathers have shed,
No foot of a foe shall e'er tread on their grave ;
But the thistle shall bloom on the bed of the brave.
The thistle of Scotland, the thistle so green.
This song was inserted in Hogg's " Jacobite Relics." The Shepherd states, in
introducing it : " Tliis is a modern song, and the only one that is in the volume, to
my knowledge. It had no right to be here, for it is a national, not a Jacobite song;
but I insert it out of a whim, to vary the theme a little. It is an excellent song,
though professedly an imitation, and, when tolerably sung, never misses of having
a good effect among a company of Scots people. It has been published as mine in
several collections ; I wish it were ; but I am told that it was written by Mr. Suther-
land, land-surveyor, a gentleman of whom I know nothing, save that he is the author
of some other popular songs." As nothing else has been discovered of Mr. Suther-
land, the song is supposed to have been written by Hogg himself.
MY Am COUNTEIE.
Allan Cunningham.
The sun rises bright in France,
And fair sets he ;
But he has tint the blythe blink he had
In my ain countrie.
Oh, gladness comes to many.
But sorrow comes to me,
As I look o'er the wide ocean
To my ain countrie.