Come kinsmen, come clansmen, from South and
from North,
Hark! hark! the wild slogan of war pealing forth!
It rings through each vale, and from peak unto peak
The heather-clad mountains in thunder-tones speak;
It calls on our loyal, our true, and our brave,
From the whispering heath and the hollow-toned wave,
With sabre and musket, and red battle-brand,
To gather once more ’neath the Flag of our Land.
Shall the stranger still rule in the halls of our sires?
Shall our waters still mirror the plunderers’ fires?
Shall our manhood be lost, and our darling old sod
By tyrants and traitors forever be trod?
’Mid the nations around us, oh, say, shall our name,
Our cause, and our people be bywords for shame?
No! We swear by the graves of our fathers to stand
For freedom or death ’neath the Flag of our Land!
By the fame of our martyrs, the memory of those
Who fell, side by side, ever fronting their foes;
By the plunderers’ fires and the murderers’ steel;
By the wrongs we have felt and the hatred we feel;
By the scaffold’s red path and the dungeon’s dread gloom,
And their myriad victims who call from the tomb,
Meet the foe and strike home with a vengeance-nerved hand,
Till his false blood shall crimson the Flag of our Land!