Skip to content
Linespedia

Lines On Captain Wogan. To An Oak Tree

Topics: classic

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

AI analysis available. Enable JavaScript to interact.

About this line

"To an Oak Tree, In the Churchyard of --, In the Highlands of Scotland, Said to Mark the Grave of Captain Wogan, Killed in 1649...."

"Lines On Captain Wogan. To An Oak Tree" is a quintessential example of Walter Scott (Sir)'s signature style... ### Why We Love This Line At Linespedia, we believe that poetry is the ultimate sanctuary for the soul...

Classified Tags

Related lines

"I.     And said I that my limbs were old,     And said I that my blood was cold,     And that my kindly fire was fled,     And my poor wither'd he"

""O hone a rie'! O hone a rie!"     The pride of Albin's line is o'er,     And fall'n Glenartney's stateliest tree;     We ne'er shall see Lord"

"CANTO I.XIX.     The Lady sought the lofty hall,     Where many a bold retainer lay,     And with jocund din among them all,     Her son pursued"

"This ae nighte, this ae nighte,     Every nighte and alle;     Fire and sleete and candle lighte,     And Christe receive thye saule.     Whe"

"Here morning in the ploughman's songs is met     Ere yet one footstep shows in all the sky,     And twilight in the east, a doubt as yet,     S"

"The Text is taken from Percy's Reliques (1765), vol. i. p. 71, 'given from two MS. copies, transmitted from Scotland.' Herd had a very similar bal"

Continue Reading

"I.     And said I that my limbs were old,     And ..."

Weekly Poetic Insight

Join our literary Sanctuary

Get the most inspiring lines, poetic analysis, and secret shayaris delivered to your inbox every Sunday.