One of the largest collections of Scottish Ballads & Scots Folk Songs, lyrics, celtic music and downloads available on the internet.
Traditional Celtic Music, Scottish Songs & Border Ballads
Scots' musician, songwriter, & balladeer.
Hazel Whyte
Irish' Music
Death Of
Schomberg
It was once
said to me, and has
been voiced by
many - that the only
difference between the
Scots and the Irish
is that the Scots stopped
fighting.

My response to my Irish
friends is that we
stopped fighting for
good reason.
After putting OUR king
on THEIR throne, WE
thought WE had won !

Sadly the Scots have now
spent four centuries
wondering what
happened ??

Perhaps NOW is the
time to peacefully right
the wrongs of
the past.
In the words
of Burns, as he
wrote from the heart.

Scots, wha hae wi' Wallace bled,
Scots, wham Bruce has aften led,
Welcome to your gory bed,
Or to victorie.

Now's the day, and now's the hour;
See the front o' battle lour;
See approach proud Edward's power,
Chains and slaverie.

Wha would be a traitor-knave?
Wha can fill a coward's grave?
Wha sae base as be a Slave?
Let him turn and flie:

Wha for Scotland's king and law,
Freedom's sword will strongly draw,
Free-man stand, or free-man fa',
Let him follow me.

By Oppression's woes and pains!
By your Sons in servile chains!
We will drain our dearest veins,
But they shall be free!

Lay the proud Usurpers low!
Tyrants fall in every foe!
Liberty's in every blow!
Let us Do - or Die!!
!

Choose your destiny.
'Twas on the day when kings did fight
Beside the Boyne's dark water
And thunder Roared from every height
And earth was read with slaughter;
That morn an aged chieftain stood
Apart from mustering bands
And, from a height that crowned the flood
Surveyed broad Erin's land

His hand upon his sword hilt leant
His war-horse stood beside
And anxiously his eyes were bent
Across the rolling tide;
He thought of what a changeful fate
Had born him from the land
Where frowned his father's castle gate
High o'er the Renish strand

And placed before his opening view
A realm where strangers bled
Where he, a leader, s carcely knew
The tongue of those he led;
He looked upon his chequered life
From boyhood's earliest time
Through scenes of tumult and of strife
Endured in every clime

To where the snows of eighty years
Usurped the raven's strand
And still the din was in his ears
The broad-sword in his hand;
He turned him to futurity
Beyond the battle plain
But then a shadow from on high
Hung o'er the heaps of slain

And through the darkness of the cloud
The chief's prophetic glance
Beheld, with winding-sheet and shroud
His fatal hour advance;
He quailed not as he felt him near
The inevitable stroke
But dashing off one rising tear
'Twas thus the old man spoke:

"God of my fathers! Death is nigh
My soul is not deceived
My hour is come, and I would die
The conqueror I have lived!
Four Thee, for Freedom, have I stood
For both I fall to -day:
Give me but victory for my blood
The price I gladly pay!

"Forbid the future to restore
A Stuart's despot gloom
Or that, by freemen dreaded more
The tyranny of Rome!
From either curse let Erin freed
As prosperous ages run
Acknowledge what a glorious deed
Upon that day was done!"

He said--fate granted half his prayer
His steed he straight bestrode
And fell as on the routed rear
Of Jame's host he rode;
He sleeps in a cathedral's gloom
Amongst the mighty dead;
And frequent o'er his hallowed tomb
Redeedful pilgrims tread:

The other half, though fate deny
We'll arrive for one and all
And William's Schomberg's spirits nigh
We'll gain or fighting fall!