Nature herself doth Scotchmen beasts confess,
Making their country such a wilderness,
A land that brings in question and suspense
God's omnipresence, but that C HARLES came thence;
But that Montrose and Crawford's loyal band
Attoned their sins, and christened half the land.
Nor is it all the nation hath these spots,
There is a Church as well as Kirk of Scots,
As in a picture, where the squinting paint
Shows fiend on this side, and on that side saint.
He that saw hell in's melancholy dream,
And in the twilight of his fancy's theme,
Scared from his sins, repented in a fright,
Had he viewed Scotland, had turned proselyte.
A land where one may pray with curst intent,
O may they never suffer banishment!
Had Cain been Scot, God would have changed his doom,
Not forced him wander, but confined him home.
Like Jews they spread, and as infection fly,
As if the Devil had ubiquity.
Hence 'tis, they live at rovers; and defy
This or that place, rags of geography.
They're citizens o' the world; they're all in all,
Scotland's a national epidemical.