Two and a half weeks ago, I appeared on Zaklog the Great’s Book Club again to discuss part of Sir Walter Scott’s poem “The Lay of the Last Minstrel”. Being an ex-pat myself, I thought I might be able to offer some interesting perspectives.

Lay of the Last Minstrel, Canto VI, [My Native Land]

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.