Four and twenty Yankees, feeling very dry, Went across the border to get a drink of rye. When the rye was opened, theYanks began to sing, 'God bless America, but God save the King!'

-Anonymous
c.1919  Ditty current in Canada, referring to  Americans crossing the border to drink during Prohibition. The Duke of  Windsor, later Edward VIII, heard it during his tour of Canada (1919) and repeatedit to his father, George V, onhis return, as he recalledin A King's Story (1951).

This is the Night Mail crossing the border Bringing the cheque and the postal order.

-Auden,W(ystan) H(ugh)
  'Night Mail', pt.1, written to accompany a documentary by the Post Office Film Unit.

The way was long, the wind was cold, The Minstrel was infirm and old; His withered cheek, and tresses grey, Seemed to have known a better day; The harp, his sole remaining joy, Was carried byan orphan boy, The last of all the Bards was he, Who sung of Border chivalry.

-Scott, Sir Walter
  The Lay of the Last Minstrel, introduction.

O, young Lochinvar is come out of the west, Through all the wide Border his steed was the best; And save his good broadsword he weapon had none, He rode all unarmed, and he rode all alone. So faithful in love, and so dauntless in war, There never was knight like the young Lochinvar.

-Scott, Sir Walter
  Marmion, canto 5, stanza12,'Lochinvar'.

They sought her baith by bower and ha'; The ladie was not seen! She's o'er the Border and awa' Wi' Jock of Hazeldean.

-Scott, Sir Walter
  'Jock of Hazeldean', stanza 4.

The Soviet Union remains a superpower in the military and nuclear senseöonly its economy is in difficulty. People want me to lead the troops out or to chuck them over the border, but I have neither the strength nor the will to do it.

-Walesa, Lech
  In TheTimes,17 Apr. English poet  and Sinologist.  He was  a distinguished translator of Chinese andJapanese literature.