Robert Burns (1759–1796). Poems and Songs.
The Harvard Classics. 1909–14.

408 . Commemoration of Rodney’s Victory

INSTEAD of a Song, boy’s, I’ll give you a Toast;

Here’s to the memory of those on the twelfth that we lost!—

That we lost, did I say?—nay, by Heav’n, that we found;

For their fame it will last while the world goes round.

The next in succession I’ll give you’s THE KING!

Whoe’er would betray him, on high may he swing!

And here’s the grand fabric, our free CONSTITUTION,

As built on the base of our great Revolution!

And longer with Politics not to be cramm’d,

Be ANARCHY curs’d, and TYRANNY damn’d!

And who would to LIBERTY e’er prove disloyal,

May his son be a hangman—and he his first trial!