John Leyden

“ GREEN Flodden, on thy blood-stain'd head
Descend no rain nor vernal dew!
But still, thou chamel of the dead,
May whitening bones thy surface strew!
Soon as I tread thy rush-clad vale,
Wild fancy feels the clasping mail;
The rancour of a thousand years
Glows in my breast; again I burn
To see the banner'd pomp of war return,
And mark beneath the moon the silver light of spears.
Lo! bursting from their common tomb,
The spirits of the ancient dead
Dimly streak the parted gloom,
With awful faces, ghastly red ”

“ When slow returns the fated day,
That view'd their chieftain's long array,
Wild to the harp's deep, plaintive string,
The virgins raise the funeral strain,
From Ord's black mountain to the northern main,
And mourn the emerald hue which paints the vest of spring. [1]
Alas! that Scottish maid should sing
The combat where her lover fell! ”

“ The earl, and his gallant band, perished to a man in the battle of Flodden; since which period, it has been reckoned unlucky in Caithness to wear green, or crott the Ord on a Monday, the day of the week on which the chieftain advanced into Sutherland.↑ In the border counties of Scotland, it was formerly customary, when any rancourous enmity subsisted between two clans, to leave the right hand of male children unchristened, that it might deal the more deadly, or according to the popular phrase, "unhallowed" blows, to their enemies. ”