William Edmondstoune Aytoun

William Edmondstoune Aytoun FRSE (21 June 1813 – 4 August 1865) was a Scottish poet, lawyer by training, and professor of rhetoric and belles lettres at the University of Edinburgh. He published poetry, translation, prose fiction, criticism and satire and was a lifelong contributor to the Edinburgh literary periodical Blackwoods Magazine. He was also a collector of Scottish ballads.

W. E. Aytoun

Quotes

• Give me but one hour of SCOTLAND,
  Let me see it ere I die. ^{[citation needed]}

• There is yet one place of shelter,
  Where the foeman cannot come,
  Where the summons never sounded
  Of the trumpet or the drum.
  There again we'll meet our children,
  Who, on Flodden's trampled sod,
  For their king and for their country
  Rendered up their souls to God.
  There shall we find rest and refuge,
  With our dear departed brave;
  And the ashes of the city
  Be our universal grave!
  • Edinburgh after Flodden, stanza XV, from Lays of The Scottish Cavaliers (1848)

• Fhairshon had a son,
  Who married Noah's daughter,
  And nearly spoiled ta Flood,
  By drinking up the water.
  
  Which he would have done,
  I at least pelieve it,
  Had the mixture been
  Only half Glenlivet.
  • Poem, The Massacre of the Macpherson