Xxviii

"Hear, gentle friends! ere yet for me, Ye break the bands of fealty. My life, my honor, and my cause, I tender free to Scotland's laws. Are these so weak as must require The aid of your misguided ire? Or, if I suffer causeless wrong, Is then my selfish rage so strong, My sense of public weal so low, That, for mean vengeance on a foe, Those cords of love I should unbind, Which knit my country and my kind? O no! Believe, in yonder tower It will not soothe my captive hour, To know those spears our foes should dread, For me in kindred gore are red; To know, in fruitless brawl begun, For me, that mother wails her son; For me, that widow's mate expires; For me, that orphans weep their sires; That patriots mourn insulted laws, And curse the Douglas for the cause. O let your patience ward such ill, And keep your right to love me still!"