And now there was speech in the south,

   And a man of the south that was wise,

A periwig’d lord of London, [109]

   Called on the clans to rise.

And the riders rode, and the summons

   Came to the western shore,

To the land of the sea and the heather,

   To Appin and Mamore.

It called on all to gather

   From every scrog and scaur,

That loved their fathers’ tartan

   And the ancient game of war.

And down the watery valley

   And up the windy hill,

Once more, as in the olden,

   The pipes were sounding shrill;

Again in highland sunshine

   The naked steel was bright;

And the lads, once more in tartan

   Went forth again to fight.

“O, why should I dwell here

   With a weird upon my life,

When the clansmen shout for battle

   And the war-swords clash in strife?

I cannae joy at feast,

   I cannae sleep in bed,

For the wonder of the word

   And the warning of the dead.

It sings in my sleeping ears,

   It hums in my waking head,

The name—Ticonderoga,

   The utterance of the dead.

Then up, and with the fighting men

   To march away from here,

Till the cry of the great war-pipe

   Shall drown it in my ear!”

Where flew King George’s ensign

   The plaided soldiers went:

They drew the sword in Germany,

   In Flanders pitched the tent.

The bells of foreign cities

   Rang far across the plain:

They passed the happy Rhine,

   They drank the rapid Main.

Through Asiatic jungles

   The Tartans filed their way,

And the neighing of the war-pipes

   Struck terror in Cathay. [111]

“Many a name have I heard,” he thought,

   “In all the tongues of men,

Full many a name both here and there.

   Full many both now and then.

When I was at home in my father’s house

   In the land of the naked knee,

Between the eagles that fly in the lift

   And the herrings that swim in the sea,

And now that I am a captain-man

   With a braw cockade in my hat—

Many a name have I heard,” he thought,

   “But never a name like that.”