What is being a nation? A talent springing in the heart. And love of country? Keeping house among a cloud of witnesses (Waldo Williams)
1. When one hundred thousand people
met to march from Glasgow Green,
there were millions more walked with them,
a cloud of witnesses unseen,
from the past and from the future,
and the cry on every hand,
‘not in our name do you go to war,
this must be a peaceful land.’
2. And how shall we teach our children
love of country, pride of place?
Shall we say, we once were heroes,
of a fiery, fighting race;
and forget the stains of violence -
people beaten, enslaved and banned?
Or shall we now be peacemakers
in a hospitable land?
3. From the Pentland to the Solway,
from the Forth down to the Clyde,
city streets and quiet places
and the turning of the tide;
shall we rise on wings of eagles
soaring over wave and sand,
never seeing beneath the surface
to the scars upon the land.
4. We are armoured and defended
like an empire dressed for war.
But we face no threat or peril
and we don’t know what it’s for.
‘Take the missiles from the waters’,
it’s our dream and our demand.
Turn the weapons into ploughshares,
Give us back a peaceful land.
5. There’s a choice that lies before us.
How shall Scotland best be known?
For the glories of its history
and its loveliness alone?
Or shall care for all earth’s people
be the song for which we stand,
and the flowering of our nation
as a just and peaceful land.