‘TWAS Lord’s-day morn, a lovelier never rose,
And nature seemed in holy, calm repose;
No cloud was seen along the azure sky,
And the pure streamlet glided softly by:
From tree to tree the warbling minstrels sung,
And heaven’s bright arch with nature’s praises rung.
Though all was still, yet persecution’s rage,
With awful fury, scourg’d a bleeding age;
Then Scotland groaned beneath a tyrant’s yoke,
Till her proud spirit seem’d for ever broke.
Her sons were hunted from the abodes of men
To savage wilds, or some sequester’d glen.
Justice stood mute, for demons gave the law,
And many a bloody scene her mountains saw.
What though this morning rose so calmly bright,
The eye which saw it trembled at its light.
On Loudon’s braes the bird might find a nest;
On Pentland’s hills the wounded deer might rest;
But terror there her gloomy watch did keep,
Like the death-storm which overhangs the deep;
And homeless man from place to place was driven,
Bereft of hope, and every stay but heaven.
God’s people met amidst the lonely wild,
Like wretched outcasts, from a world exiled;
In a lone cave, the eagle’s drear abode,
They met to worship and to praise their God.
The fretted rocks around their temple hung,
And echoed back the praises as they sung:
Though half supprest, the thrilling accents rise
To God, who hears and answers in the sides.
The preacher rose, and every voice grew still,
Save echoing breezes round the lonely hill;
With solemn awe he opes the blessed book,
Earnest in voice, and heavenly in his look,
While from his lips the soothing accents flow,
To cheer the flock and mitigate their woe —
For who could tell how soon the sent’nel’s breath
Might give the signal of approaching death?
For every moment seem’d to them the last,
And days to come more gloomy than the past.
Within that place a rude unshapen board
Was spread in memory of their risen Lord;
While the deep thunder rent the thickening cloud,
And lightning flashed along the mournful crowd;
And when with lowly hands the bread was broke,
The sheeted flame fell on the living rock,
Illum’d the table with its symbols spread,
As if heaven’s brightness rested on their head.
With placid looks they saw the dark’ning cloud,
Which hid Jehovah in his awful shroud;
And when the voice fell deaf’ning on the ear,
No murm’ring word proclaim’d them men of fear;
But calm and sweet the heaven-tun’d “Martyrs” rose,
Like zephyrs sighing at the tempest’s close.
In caves and glens their Lord’s-day hours were spent,
‘Till the pale moon illum’d the firmament;
And there they wandered at the dead of night,
When the dim stars withheld their glimmering light.
And oh! how oft their wild retreat’s been found
By those who sought them like the blood-train’d hound;
And made that place — their oft frequented cave —
The holy martyr’s solitary grave;
Where naught but winds their dreary death-knell rung,
And the scar’d birds their mournful requiem sung.
Yet heaven saw, and bade their spirits rise
On angel wings from sorrow to the skies;
While all they suffer’d shall be ne’er forgot,
Their grave be hallowed, and their dying spot.
Peace to their memory! let no impious breath
Soil their fair fame, or triumph o’er their death!
Let Scotia’s grateful sons their teardrops shed.
Where low they lie in honor’s gory bed,
Rich with the spoils their glorious deeds had won,
And purchas’d freedom to a land undone;
A land which owes its glory and its worth
To those whom tyrants banished from the earth.