Classic Poem

Make us, yea, your freemen, as ye made our fathers!
How could they be bondsmen, who loved the hills and sea?
Wrestlers with the sea-waves when the tempest gathers,
Breasters of the mountain-side where the winds blow free!
Sons of our fathers, come, gather all together,
Shall we flee like cowards, shall we cringe like slaves?
Sooner our heart's blood shall dye the purple heather,
Sooner our heads sink beneath the homeless waves!


One morn I sailed in veering autumn weather
All along the Highland hills where the waves break free;
Hill and cloud and wave were moving all together,
And O but it was sweet, the salt spray of the sea!
Yet my heart yearned in the windy autumn weather
For the brooding hills, stretching purple, blue, and grey
O the high moors and the glowing purple heather,
The corries and the bens where the wild winds play!

One day had I my will, in the wide and windy spaces,
Moors and moors and moors, where the heather blossoms free,
Sheep-paths that wander over lonely silent places,
And O the great clouds sailing like ships upon the sea!
Yet when adown a glen, in the hour of the gloaming,
I saw a glint of waves, homeless, and far, and grey,
Ah me, my heart to the sea and isles went homing,
Yearning for the sting and scent of the salt sea spray!

Ah, who, dividing the secret soul asunder,
Knows which he loves the dearest, the sea-wave or the hill?
O'er the waves the hills rise, a rapture and a wonder,
And from the heather bens the sea is calling still!
Come, come ye Four Winds, and breathe across the heather,
Play upon the hill-tops, and blow across the sea,
Make us your freemen, and mingle all together,
Soul, and mountain wild, and waters that are free!