Classic and Contemporary Poetry
THE REBEL SCOT, by JOHN CLEVELAND Poem Explanation Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: How, providence? And yet a scottish crew? Last Line: Drops into styx and turns a solan goose. Subject(s): Hate; Scotland - Relations With England | ||||||||
How, Providence? and yet a Scottish crew? Then Madam Nature wears black patches too! What? shall our nation be in bondage thus Unto a land that truckles under us? Ring the bells backward! I am all on fire. Not all the buckets in a country quire Shall quench my rage. A poet should be feared, When angry, like a comet's flaming beard. And where's the stoic can his wrath appease, To see his country sick of Pym's disease? By Scotch invasion to be made a prey To such pigwiggin myrmidons as they? But that there's charm in verse, I would not quote The name of Scot without an antidote; Unless my head were red, that I might brew Invention there that might be poison too. Were I a drowsy judge whose dismal note Disgorgeth halters as a juggler's throat Doth ribbons; could I in Sir Emp'ric's tone Speak pills in phrase and quack destruction; Or roar like Marshall, that Geneva bull, Hell and damnation a pulpit full; Yet to express a Scot, to play that prize, Not all those mouth-grenadoes can suffice. Before a Scot can properly be curst, I must like Hocus swallow daggers first. Come, keen iambics, with your badger's feet And badger-like bite till your teeth do meet. Help, ye tart satirists, to imp my rage With all the scorpions that should whip this age. Scots are like witches; do but whet your pen, Scratch till the blood come, they'll not hurt you then. Now, as the martyrs were enforced to take The shapes of beasts, like hypocrites, at stake, I'll bait my Scot so, yet not cheat your eyes; A Scot within a beast is no disguise. No more let Ireland brag her harmless nation Fosters no venom since the Scot's plantation: Nor can ours feigned antiquity maintain; Since they came in, England hath wolves again. The Scot that kept the Tower might have shown, Within the grate of his own breast alone, The leopard and the panther, and engrossed What all those wild collegiates had cost The honest high-shoes in their termly fees; First to the salvage lawyer, next to these. 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 Charles came thence, But that Montrose and Crawford's loyal band Atoned their sins and christ'ned 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 cursed intent, 'Oh 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' th' world; they're all in all; Scotland's a nation epidemical. And yet they ramble not to learn the mode, How to be dressed, or how to lisp abroad; To return knowing in the Spanish shrug, Or which of the Dutch States a double jug Resembles most in belly or in beard, (The card by which the mariners are steered). No, the Scots-errant fight and fight to eat, Their Ostrich stomachs make their swords their meat. Nature with Scots as tooth-drawers hath dealt Who use to hang their teeth upon their belt. Yet wonder not at this their happy choice, The serpent's fatal still to Paradise. Sure, England hath the hemorrhoids, and these On the north postern of the patient seize Like leeches; thus they physically thirst After our blood, but in the cure shall burst! Let them not think to make us run o' th' score To purchase villenage, as once before When an act passed to stroke them on the head, Call them good subjects, buy them gingerbread. Not gold, nor acts of grace, 'tis steel must tame The stubborn Scot; a Prince that would reclaim Rebels by yielding, doth like him, or worse, Who saddled his own back to shame his horse. Was it for this you left your leaner soil, Thus to lard Israel with Egypt's spoil? They are the Gospel's life-guard; but for them, The garrison of New Jerusalem, What would the brethren do? The Cause! The Cause! Sack-possets and the fundamental laws! Lord! what a godly thing is want of shirts! How a Scotch stomach and no meat converts! They wanted food and raiment, so they took Religion for their seamstress and their cook. Unmask them well; their honours and estate, As well as conscience, are sophisticate. Shrive but their titles and their money poise, A laird and twenty pence pronounced with noise, When construed, but for a plain yeoman go, And a good sober two-pence; and well so. Hence then, you proud impostors; get you gone, You Picts in gentry and devotion; You scandal to the stock of verse, a race Able to bring the gibbet in disgrace. Hyperbolus by suffering did traduce The ostracism and shamed it out of use. The Indian, that Heaven did forswear Because he heard some Spaniards were there, Had he but known what Scots in Hell had been, He would Erasmus-like have hung between. My Muse hath done. A voider for the nonce! I wrong the Devil should I pick their bones; That dish is his; for, when the Scots decease, Hell, like their nation, feeds on barnacles. A Scot, when from the gallow-tree got loose, Drops into Styx and turns a Solan goose. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...EDINBURGH AFTER FLODDEN by WILLIAM EDMONSTOUNE AYTOUN THE BURIAL-MARCH OF THE DUNDEE by WILLIAM EDMONSTOUNE AYTOUN THE ISLAND OF THE SCOTS by WILLIAM EDMONSTOUNE AYTOUN ADDRESS TO BEELZEBUB by ROBERT BURNS EPISTLE TO ROBERT GRAHAM OF FINTRY (1) by ROBERT BURNS POETICAL ADDRESS TO MR. WILLIAM TYTLER by ROBERT BURNS STRATHALLAN'S LAMENT by ROBERT BURNS SUCH A PARCEL OF ROGUES IN A NATION by ROBERT BURNS |
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