The Poetical Works of Walter C. Smith :: :: University of Virginia Library

Yes! they blamed us loudly of course,
The man who oppressed us so long,
That we counted on. But it was worse
When our friends too said we did wrong,
And had sullied, and tarnished with crime
The grandest event of the time.

Yet there's more to be said for our work
Than some of our wiseacres think,
We did not set on, like the Turk,
Inflamed with religion and drink,
To wreak a blind vengeance, and strike
The good and the bad both alike.

It was justice we aimed at. We chose
With care whom we meant to cast out,
And when some would have rough-handled those
We knew nothing evil about—
For there were some devout curates too—
With them we had nothing to do.

But the priests who were spies on their flock,
Who sent lists to the soldiers to kill,
Or who dragged to the cord and the block
Those who liked a discourse on the hill,
Which did them some good, as they thought,
Them we harried well, sparing them not.

It looked a rough work to be sure;
But we struck at none of their lives,
Only cast out their fine furniture,
And meddled with none of their wives;
We carried off none of their stores,
But left them outside the manse doors.

'Tis like enough some caught a cold,
For the weather was not always good,
And it might be too much for the old,
Yet I never have understood
That any one died outright
Of our rabbling, that gave them a fright.

No blood by our lads, then, was spilt,
We sought not for any one's life,
But out hearts were wroth at the guilt
Of the man who, when troubles were rife,
Debased their high office to be
The tools of a vile tyranny.

609

Would you have us look on, and be calm
When our shepherds, whose duty is plain,
By preaching, by prayer, and by Psalm,
To bring us to God's way again,
Took to hounding dragoons on the people
Who preferred the hillside to their steeple?

In our worship we mostly were slack,
But we all were human at least;
And when friends got the boot or the rack,
On the hint of some rogue of a priest,
That burnt in our hearts like a fire;
And our scorn and our loathing were dire.

There were heads on the Netherbow Port
We had honoured for patriot zeal,
While turncoats and triflers at Court
Were wrecking the common weal;
And the Church, which should shield the oppressed,
Cared only to feather its nest.

No, I am not ashamed—not a whit—
Of the work that I did in those days.
It had been foul shame just to sit,
And join in the prayer and the praise
Of the wolves in sheeps' clothing, who then
Had the cure of the souls of poor men.

I grant we had not enough faith
To resist, in the time of their might,
Like those who withstood unto death,
And held by the truth and the right;
We shared in the nation's complaints,
But we were neither heroes nor saints.

What would you? Some men are so made,
They are not very noble or brave;
Let them quietly work at their trade,
Eat and drink, and go down to the grave,
And they may be good citizens, though
Not a throb of great Spirits they know.

Yet, when they can safely reveal
The thoughts of their heart, you may find
That they long had been fain to conceal
The wrath of a well-ordered mind,
As the thunder lies hid in the cloud,
Till it bursts at length angry and loud.

We were mostly young lads from the plough,
And our wrath was a kind of horse-play—
A frolic of justice, which now
Looks to me just too mirthful and gay;
It had better befitted the cause
Had our rabbling been worse than it was.

We gave the bad curates a fright,
And we laughed at their crestfallen looks
When we roused them from slumber that night,
And burned their messe-robes and messe-books:
But we left them to go their own way,
With their lives and their gear for a prey.