Robert Burns (Роберт Бернс)

Caledonia

THERE was once a day, but old Time then was young,
  That brave Caledonia, the chief of her line,
From some of your northern deities sprung:
  (Who knows not that brave Caledonia’s divine?)
From Tweed to the Orcades was her domain,
  To hunt, or to pasture, or do what she would:
Her heavenly relations there fixed her reign,
  And pledg’d her their godheads to warrant it good.

A lambkin in peace, but a lion in war,
  The pride of her kindred the heroine grew;
Her grandsire, old Odin, triumphantly swore,
  ‘Whoe’er shall provoke thee, th’ encounter shall rue!’
With tilage or pasture at times she would sport,
  To feed her fair flocks by her green rustling corn;
But chiefly the woods were her fav’rite resort,
  Her darling amusement, the hounds and the horn.

Long quiet she reign’d; till thitherward steers
  A flight of bold eagles from Adria’s strand;
Repeated, successive, for many long years,
  They darken’d the air, and they plunder’d the land.
Their pounces were murder, and terror their cry,
  They conquer’d and ruin’d a world beside;
She took to her hills, and her arrows let fly,-
  The daring invaders they fled or they died.

The fell Harpy-raven took wing from the north,
  The scourge of the seas, and the dread of the shore;
The wild Scandinavian boar issued forth
  To wanton in carnage and wallow in gore:
O’er countries and kingdoms their fury prevail’d,
  No arts could appease them, no arms could repel:
But brave Caledonia in vain they assail’d,
  As Largs well can witness, and Loncartie tell.

The Cameleon-savage disturb’d her repose,
  With tumult, disquiet, rebellion, and strife;
Provok’d beyond bearing, at last she arose,
  And robb’d him at once of his hopes and his life:
The Anglian lion, the terror of France,
  Oft prowling, ensanguin’d the Tweed’s silver flood;
But, taught by the bright Caledonian lance,
  He learned to fear in his own native wood.

Thus bold, independent, unconquer’d, and free,
  Her bright course of glory for ever shall run:
For brave Caledonia immortal must be;
  I’ll prove it from Euclid as clear as the sun:
Rectangle-triangle, the figure we’ll choose,
  The upright is Chance, and old Time is the base;
But brave Caledonia’s the hypothenuse;
  Then ergo, she’ll match them, and match them always.

1. Blythe Was She
2. I Gaed a Waefu' Gate Yestreen
3. The Flowery Banks of Cree
4. The Banks of Nith (THE THAMES flows proudly to the sea)
5. Farewell to Ballochmyle

James Hogg (Джеймс Хогг) Caledonia ("Caledonia! thou land of the mountain and rock")

Распечатать (Print)

Количество обращений к стихотворению: 2173

Последние стихотворения

To English version