My Native Land
My Native Land - fact Summary
Appears in the Minstrelsy
This short, rhetorical lyric asserts patriotic feeling as essential to human worth. Addressing anyone who would not declare "my native land," the speaker condemns self-centered people—regardless of title or wealth—as spiritually dead and destined to die unlamented. The poem expresses Scott’s pride in Scottish identity and elevates communal loyalty over private ambition, using confident moral judgment to praise attachment to homeland.
Read Complete AnalysesBreathes 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.
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