To an Oak Tree, In the Churchyard of --, In the Highlands of Scotland, Said to Mark the Grave of Captain Wogan, Killed in 1649. <br /> <br /> <br />Emblem of England's ancient faith, <br />Full proudly may thy branches wave, <br />Where loyalty lies low in death, <br />And valour fills a timeless grave. <br /> <br />And thou, brave tenant of the tomb! <br />Repine not if our clime deny, <br />Above thine honoured sod to bloom, <br />The flowerets of a milder sky. <br /> <br />These owe their birth to genial May; <br />Beneath a fiercer sun they pine, <br />Before the winter storm decay- <br />And can their worth be type of thine? <br /> <br />No! for 'mid storms of Fate opposing, <br />Still higher swelled thy dauntless heart, <br />And, while Despair the scene was closing, <br />Commenced thy brief but brilliant part. <br /> <br />Twas then thou sought'st on Albyn's hill, <br />(When England's sons the strife resigned), <br />A rugged race, resisting still, <br />And unsubdued though unrefined. <br /> <br />Thy death's hour heard no kindred wail, <br />No holy knell thy requiem rung; <br />Thy mourners were the plaided Gael; <br />Thy dirge the clamorous pibroch sung. <br /> <br />Yet who, in Fortune's summer-shine, <br />To waste life's longest term away, <br />Would change that glorious dawn of thine, <br />Though darkened ere its noontide day? <br /> <br />Be thine the Tree whose dauntless boughs <br />Brave summer's drought and winter's gloom! <br />Rome bound with oak her patriots' brows, <br />As Albyn shadows Wogan's tomb.<br /><br />Sir Walter Scott<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/lines-on-captain-wogan-to-an-oak-tree/
