Reply to the Toast of Scottish Poets

Burns sang so sweet behind the plow,
Daisies we’ll wreath around his brow,
Musing on thee what visions throng,
Of floods you poured of Scottish song.
Scott he did write romancing rhymes
Of chivalry of ancient times;
For tender feeling none can cope
With Campbell the sweet Bard of hope.
Eye with sympathetic tear in
Will shed it for Exile of Erin,
And Tannahill while at his loom
Wove flowers of song will ever bloom.
Hogg, Ettrick Shepherd, did gain fame
By singing when the Kie comes hame,
With good time coming Bard McKay
Still merrily doth cheer the way.

Where this text comes from

First published in Musings on the Banks of Canadian Thames (1884). First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established. [1]

Structure read from the source's markup; the words have not been compared against a page scan. Last checked 2026-08-20.

Taken from Standard Ebooks, standardebooks/james-mcintyre_poetry, poetry.xhtml. Rights: public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931).

Earlier sources (3)

This poem as JSON or plain text. Line anchors #L1–#L16.

Cite this poem

James McIntyre (1828?–1906). “Reply to the Toast of Scottish Poets.” First published in Musings on the Banks of Canadian Thames (1884). Text: Poem Index, https://poemindex.org/james-mcintyre/reply-to-the-toast-of-scottish-poets/. Append #L14 to cite line 14, or #L4-L9 for lines 4–9.

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