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The Lay of the Brave Cameron
by John Stuart Blackie
circa 1867

At Quatrebras, when the fight was hot,
Stout Cameron stood and eyed the shot.
Eager to leap as a mettlesome hound
Into the fight with a plunge and a bound:
But Wellington, lord of the cool command,
Held the reins with a steady hand,
Saying, "Cameron wait; you'll soon have enough;
The Frenchman shall taste your fervid stuff
When the Cameron men are wanted!"

Now hotter and hotter the battle grew.
With tramp and rattle and wild halloo:
And the Frenchman poured like a fiery flood.
Right on the ditch where Cameron stood.
Then Wellington flashed on his captain brave
A lightning glance and the order gave.
Saying "Cameron, now have at them boy.
Take care of the road to Charleroi,
Where the Cameron men are wanted!"

Brave Cameron shot like a shaft from a bow
Into the midst of the plunging foe.
And with him the lads whom he loved, like a torrent
Sweeping the rocks in its foamy current;
And he fell the first in the fervid start.
Pierced by a shot in a mortal part;
But his men pushed on, where the work was rough,
Giving the Frenchmen a taste of their stuff,
Where the Cameron men were wanted!"

Brave Cameron then from the mortal fray
His foster-brother bore away--
His foster-brother with service true--
Back to the village of Waterloo.
And they laid him on the soft green sod
And he breathed his spirit there to God;
But not til he heard the loud hurrah
Of victory billowed from Quatrebras,
Where the Cameron men were wanted!"

By the road to Ghent they buried him then,
This noble chief of the Cameron men;
And not an eye was tearless seen
That day beside the alley green:
Wellington wept, the iron man;
And from every eye in the Cameron clan
The big round drop in bitterness fell,
As with pipes he loved so well,
His funeral wait they chanted!

And now he sleeps (for they bore him home,
When the war was done, across the foam)
Beneath the shadow of Nevis Ben,
With his sires, the pride of the Cameron men.
Three thousand Highland men stood proud
As they laid him to rest in his native ground--
The Cameron brave, whose eye never quailed,
Whose heart never sank, and whose hand never failed
Where the Cameron men were wanted!"