My Native Land

by SIR WALTER SCOTT (1771-1832)
featuring voice artist Fred Bugg as "Bullwinkle J. Moose"

Breathes there the man, with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land!
Whose heart hath ne’er within him burn’d,
As home his footsteps he hath turn’d
From wandering on a foreign strand!

If such there breathe, go, mark him well;
For him no Minstrel raptures swell;
High though his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim;
Despite those titles, power, and pelf,
The wretch, concentred all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust, from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonour’d, and unsung.

Sir Walter Scott was born in Edinburgh, the son of a solicitor. An early bout with polio left him lame in the right leg. Six of his 11 brothers and sisters died in infancy. However, Scott grew up to be a man over six feet tall with great physical endurance.

Sir Walter Scott Contemporaries
William Wordsworth
Thomas Moore
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Leigh Hunt