The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Lady of the Lake, by Sir Walter Scott.

Transcriber's Notes:

Obvious mistakes and punctuation errors have been corrected, but inconsistent spelling, punctuation and hyphenation has been retained. At the end of the text there is a list of the corrections that were made.

The footnotes in the introduction have been moved to the end of the chapter, and have been renumbered for clarity.

Note links for the poem have been added to this version.

THE
LADY OF THE LAKE

EDITED FOR SCHOOL USE
BY
WILLIAM VAUGHN MOODY
SOMETIME ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH
THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

[Pg 9] I. LIFE OF SCOTT

Walter Scott was born in Edinburgh, August 15, 1771, of an ancient Scotch clan numbering in its time many a hard rider and good fighter, and more than one of these petty chieftains, half-shepherd and half-robber, who made good the winter inroads into their stock of beeves by spring forays and cattle drives across the English Border. Scott's great-grandfather was the famous "Beardie" of Harden, so called because after the exile of the Stuart sovereigns he swore never to cut his beard until they were reinstated; and several degrees farther back he could point to a still more famous figure, "Auld Wat of Harden," who with his fair dame, the "Flower of Yarrow," is mentioned in The Lay of the Last Minstrel. The first member of the clan to abandon country life and take up a sedentary profession, was Scott's father, who settled in Edinburgh as Writer to the Signet, a position corresponding in Scotland to that of attorney or solicitor in England. The character of this father, stern, scrupulous, Calvinistic, with a high sense of ceremonial dignity and a punctilious regard for the honorable conventions of life, united with the wilder ancestral strain to make Scott what he was. From "Auld Wat" and[Pg 10] "Beardie" came his high spirit, his rugged manliness, his chivalric ideals; from the Writer to the Signet came that power of methodical labor which made him a giant among the literary workers of his day, and that delicate sense of responsibility which gave his private life its remarkable sweetness and beauty.

At the age of eighteen months, Scott was seized with a teething fever which settled in his right leg and retarded its growth to such an extent that he was slightly lame for the rest of his life. Possibly this affliction was a blessing in disguise, since it is not improbable that Scott's love of active adventure would have led him into the army or the navy, if he had not been deterred by a bodily impediment; in which case English history might have been a gainer, but English literature would certainly have been immeasurably a loser. In spite of his lameness, the child grew strong enough to be sent on a long visit to his grandfather's farm at Sandyknowe; and here, lying among the sheep on the windy downs, playing about the romantic ruins of Smailholm Tower,[1] scampering through the heather on a tiny Shetland pony, or listening to stories of the thrilling past told by the old women of the farm, he drank in sensations which strengthened both the hardiness and the romanticism of his nature. A story is told of his being found in the fields during a thunder[Pg 11] storm, clapping his hands at each flash of lightning, and shouting "Bonny! Bonny!"—a bit of infantile intrepidity which makes more acceptable a story of another sort illustrative of his mental precocity. A lady entering his mother's room found him reading aloud a description of a shipwreck, accompanying the words with excited comments and gestures. "There's the mast gone," he cried, "crash it goes; they will all perish!" The lady entered into his agitation with tact, and on her departure, he told his mother that he liked their visitor, because "she was a virtuoso, like himself." To her amused inquiry as to what a virtuoso might be, he replied: "Don't ye know? why, 'tis one who wishes to and will know everything."

As a boy at school in Edinburgh and in Kelso, and afterwards as a student at the University and apprentice in his father's law office, Scott took his own way to become a "virtuoso"; a rather queer way it must sometimes have seemed to his good preceptors. He refused point-blank to learn Greek, and cared little for Latin. His scholarship was so erratic that he glanced meteor-like from the head to the foot of his classes and back again, according as luck gave or withheld the question to which his highly selective memory had retained the answer. But outside of school hours he was intensely at work to "know everything," so far as "everything" came within the bounds of his special tastes. Before[Pg 12] he was ten years old he had begun to collect chap-books and ballads. As he grew older he read omnivorously in romance and history; at school he learned French for the sole purpose of knowing at first hand the fascinating cycles of old French romance; a little later he mastered Italian in order to read Dante and Ariosto, and to his schoolmaster's indignation stoutly championed the claim of the latter poet to superiority over Homer; a little later he acquired Spanish and read Don Quixote in the original. With such efforts, however, considerable as they were for a boy who passionately loved a "bicker" in the streets and who was famed among his comrades for bravery in climbing the perilous "kittle nine stanes" on Castle Rock, he was not content. Nothing more conclusively shows the genuineness of Scott's romantic feeling than his willingness to undergo severe mental drudgery in pursuit of knowledge concerning the old storied days which had enthralled his imagination. It was no moonshine sentimentality which kept him hour after hour and day after day in the Advocate's Library, poring over musty manuscripts, deciphering heraldic devices, tracing genealogies, and unraveling obscure points of Scottish history. By the time he was twenty-one he had made himself, almost unconsciously, an expert paleographer and antiquarian, whose assistance was sought by professional workers in those branches of knowledge. Carlyle has charged against Scott that he poured out his vast[Pg 13] floods of poetry and romance without preparation or forethought; that his production was always impromptu, and rooted in no sufficient past of acquisition. The charge cannot stand. From his earliest boyhood until his thirtieth year, when he began his brilliant career as poet and novelist, his life was one long preparation—very individual and erratic preparation, perhaps, but none the less earnest and fruitful.

In 1792, Scott, then twenty-one years old, was admitted a member of the faculty of advocates of Edinburgh. During the five years which elapsed between this date and his marriage, his life was full to overflowing of fun and adventure, rich with genial companionship, and with experience of human nature in all its wild and tame varieties. Ostensibly he was a student of law, and he did, indeed, devote some serious attention to the mastery of his profession. But the dry formalities of legal life his keen humor would not allow him to take quite seriously. On the day when he was called to the bar, while waiting his turn among the other young advocates, he turned to his friend, William Clark, who had been called with him, and whispered, mimicking the Highland lasses who used to stand at the Cross of Edinburgh to be hired for the harvest: "We've stood here an hour by the Tron, hinny, and deil a ane has speered [2] our price." Though Scott never made a legal reputation, either[Pg 14] as pleader at the bar or as an authority upon legal history and principles, it cannot be doubted that his experience in the Edinburgh courts was of immense benefit to him. In the first place, his study of the Scotch statutes, statutes which had taken form very gradually under the pressure of changing national conditions, gave him an insight into the politics and society of the past not otherwise to have been obtained. Of still more value, perhaps, was the association with his young companions in the profession, and daily contact with the racy personalities which traditionally haunt all courts of law, and particularly Scotch courts of law: the first association kept him from the affectation and sentimentality which is the bane of the youthful romanticist; and the second enriched his memory with many an odd figure afterward to take its place, clothed in the colors of a great dramatic imagination, upon the stage of his stories.

Added to these experiences, there were others equally calculated to enlarge his conception of human nature. Not the least among these he found in the brilliant literary and artistic society of Edinburgh, to which his mother's social position gave him entrance. Here, when only a lad, he met Robert Burns, then the pet and idol of the fashionable coteries of the capital. Here he heard Henry Mackenzie deliver a lecture on German literature which turned his attention to the[Pg 15] romantic poetry of Germany and led directly to his first attempts at ballad-writing. But much more vital than any or all of these influences, were those endless walking-tours which alone or in company with a boon companion he took over the neighboring country-side—care-free, roystering expeditions, which he afterwards immortalized as Dandie Dinmont's "Liddesdale raids" in Guy Mannering. Thirty miles across country as the crow flies, with no objective point and no errand, a village inn or a shepherd's hut at night, with a crone to sing them an old ballad over the fire, or a group of hardy dalesmen to welcome them with stories and carousal—these were blithe adventurous days such as could not fail to ripen Scott's already ardent nature, and store his memory with genial knowledge. The account of Dandie Dinmont given by Mr. Shortreed may be taken as a picture, only too true in some of its touches, of Scott in these youthful escapades: "Eh me, ... sic an endless fund of humor and drollery as he had then wi' him. Never ten yards but we were either laughing or roaring and singing. Wherever we stopped how brawlie he suited himsel' to everybody! He aye did as the lave did; never made himsel' the great man or took ony airs in the company. I've seen him in a' moods in these jaunts, grave and gay, daft and serious, sober and drunk—(this, however, even in our wildest rambles, was but rare)—but drunk or sober, he was aye the[Pg 16] gentleman. He looked excessively heavy and stupid when he was fou, but he was never out o' gude humor." After this, we are not surprised to hear that Scott's father told him disgustedly that he was better fitted to be a fiddling peddler, a "gangrel scrape-gut," than a respectable attorney. As a matter of fact, however, behind the mad pranks and the occasional excesses there was a very serious purpose in all this scouring of the country-side. Scott was picking up here and there, from the old men and women with whom he hobnobbed, antiquarian material of an invaluable kind, bits of local history, immemorial traditions and superstitions, and, above all, precious ballads which had been handed down for generations among the peasantry. These ballads, thus precariously transmitted, it was Scott's ambition to gather together and preserve, and he spared no pains or fatigue to come at any scrap of ballad literature of whose existence he had an inkling. Meanwhile, he was enriching heart and imagination for the work that was before him. So that here also, though in the hair-brained and heady way of youth, he was engaged in his task of preparation.

Scott has told us that it was his reading of Don Quixote which determined him to be an author, but he was first actually excited to composition in another way. This was by hearing recited a ballad of the German poet Bürger, entitled Lenore, in which a skeleton lover carries off his bride to a[Pg 17] wedding in the land of death. Mr. Hutton remarks upon the curiousness of the fact that a piece of "raw supernaturalism" like this should have appealed so strongly to a mind as healthy and sane as Scott's. So it was, however. He could not rid himself of the fascination of the piece until he had translated it, and published it, together with another translation from the same author. One stanza at least of this first effort of Scott sounds a note characteristic of his poetry:

Tramp! tramp! along the land they rode,
Splash! splash! along the sea;
The scourge is red, the spur drops blood,
The flashing pebbles flee.

Here we catch the trumpet-like clang and staccato tramp of verse which he was soon to use in a way to thrill his generation. This tiny pamphlet of verse, Scott's earliest publication, appeared in 1796. Soon after, he met Monk Lewis, then famous as a purveyor to English palates of the crude horrors which German romanticism had just ceased to revel in. Lewis was engaged in compiling a book of supernatural stories and poems under the title of Tales of Wonder, and asked Scott to contribute. Scott wrote for this book three long ballads—"Glenfinlas," "Cadyow Castle," and "The Gray Brother." Though tainted with the conventional diction of eighteenth century verse, these ballads are not unimpressive pieces of work; the second named, especially, shows a kind and degree of romantic[Pg 18] imagination such as his later poetry rather substantiated than newly revealed.

In the following year, 1797, Scott married a Miss Charpentier, daughter of a French refugee. She was not his first love, that place having been usurped by a Miss Stuart Belches, for whom Scott had felt perhaps the only deep passion of his life, and memory of whom was to come to the surface touchingly in his old age. Miss Charpentier, or Carpenter, as she was called, with her vivacity and quaint foreign speech "caught his heart on the rebound"; there can be no doubt that, in spite of a certain shallowness of character, she made him a good wife, and that his affection for her deepened steadily to the end. The young couple went to live at Lasswade, a village near Edinburgh, on the Esk. Scott, in whom the proprietary instinct was always very strong, took great pride in the pretty little cottage. He made a dining-table for it with his own hands, planted saplings in the yard, and drew together two willow-trees at the gate into a kind of arch, surmounted by a cross made of two sticks. "After I had constructed this," he says, "mamma (Mrs. Scott) and I both of us thought it so fine that we turned out to see it by moonlight, and walked backwards from it to the cottage door, in admiration of our magnificence and its picturesque effect." It would have been well[Pg 19] indeed for them both if their pleasures of proprietorship could always have remained so touchingly simple.

Now that he was married, Scott was forced to look a little more sharply to his fortunes. He applied himself with more determination to the law. In 1799 he became deputy-sheriff of Selkirkshire, with a salary of three hundred pounds, which placed him at least beyond the reach of want. He began to look more and more to literature as a means of supplementing his income. His ballads in the Tales of Wonder had gained him some reputation; this he increased in 1802 by the publication, under the title Border Minstrelsy, of the ballads which he had for several years been collecting, collating, and richly annotating. Meanwhile he was looking about for a congenial subject upon which to try his hand in a larger way than he had as yet adventured. Such a subject came to him at last in a manner calculated to enlist all his enthusiasm in its treatment, for it was given him by the Countess of Dalkeith, wife of the heir-apparent to the dukedom of Buccleugh. The ducal house of Buccleugh stood at the head of the clan Scott, and toward its representative the poet always held himself in an attitude of feudal reverence. The Duke of Buccleugh was his "chief," entitled to demand from him both passive loyalty and active service; so, at least, Scott loved to interpret their relationship, making effective in[Pg 20] his own case a feudal sentiment which had elsewhere somewhat lapsed. He especially loved to think of himself as the bard of his clan, a modern representative of those rude poets whom the Scottish chiefs once kept as a part of their household to chant the exploits of the clan. Nothing could have pleased his fancy more, therefore, than a request on the part of the lady of his chief to treat a subject of her assigning—namely, the dark mischief-making of a dwarf or goblin who had strayed from his unearthly master and attached himself as page to a human household. The subject fell in with the poet's reigning taste for strong supernaturalism. Gilpin Horner, the goblin page, though he proved in the sequel a difficult character to put to poetic use, was a figure grotesque and eerie enough to appeal even to Monk Lewis. At first Scott thought of treating the subject in ballad-form, but the scope of treatment was gradually enlarged by several circumstances. To begin with, he chanced upon a copy of Goethe's Götz von Berlichingen, and the history of that robber baron suggested to him the feasibility of throwing the same vivid light upon the old Border life of his ancestors as Goethe had thrown upon that of the Rhine barons. This led him to subordinate the part played by the goblin page in the proposed story, which was now widened to include elaborate pictures of medieval life and manners, and to lay the scene in the castle of Branksome, formerly the[Pg 21] stronghold of Scott's and the Duke of Buccleugh's ancestors. The verse form into which the story was thrown was due to a still more accidental circumstance, i.e., Scott's overhearing Sir John Stoddard recite a fragment of Coleridge's unpublished poem "Christabel." The placing of the story in the mouth of an old harper fallen upon evil days, was a happy afterthought; besides making a beautiful framework for the main poem, it enabled the author to escape criticism for any violent innovations of style, since these could always be attributed to the rude and wild school of poetry to which the harper was supposed to belong. In these ways The Lay of the Last Minstrel gradually developed in its present form. Upon its publication in 1805, it achieved an immediate success. The vividness of its descriptive passages, the buoyant rush of its meter, the deep romantic glow suffusing all its pages, took by storm a public familiar to weariness with the decorous abstractions of the eighteenth century poets. The first edition, a sumptuous quarto, was exhausted in a few weeks; an octavo edition of fifteen hundred was sold out within the year; and before 1830, forty-four thousand copies were needed to supply the popular demand. Scott received in all something under eight hundred pounds for the Lay, a small amount when contrasted with his gains from subsequent poems, but a sum so unusual nevertheless that he determined[Pg 22] forthwith to devote as much time to literature as he could spare from his legal duties; those he still placed foremost, for until near the close of his life he clung to his adage that literature was "a good staff, but a poor crutch."

A year before the publication of the Lay, Scott had removed to the small country seat of Ashestiel, in Selkirkshire, seven miles from the nearest town, Selkirk, and several miles from any neighbor. In the introductions to the various cantos of Marmion he has given us a delightful picture of Ashestiel and its surroundings—the swift Glenkinnon dashing through the estate in a deep ravine, on its way to join the Tweed; behind the house the rising hills beyond which lay the lovely scenery of the Yarrow. The eight years (1804–1812) at Ashestiel were the serenest, and probably the happiest, of Scott's life. Here he wrote his two greatest poems, Marmion and The Lady of the Lake. His mornings he spent at his desk, always with a faithful hound at his feet watching the tireless hand as it threw off sheet after sheet of manuscript to make up the day's stint. By one o'clock he was, as he said, "his own man," free to spend the remaining hours of light with his children, his horses, and his dogs, or to indulge himself in his life-long passion for tree-planting. His robust and healthy nature made him excessively fond of all out-of-door sports, especially riding, in which he was daring to foolhardiness. It is a curious fact, noted by Lockhart,[Pg 23] that many of Scott's senses were blunt; he could scarcely, for instance, tell one wine from another by the taste, and once sat quite unconscious at his table while his guests were manifesting extreme uneasiness over the approach of a too-long-kept haunch of venison, but his sight was unusually keen, as his hunting exploits proved. His little son once explained his father's popularity by saying that "it was him that commonly saw the hare sitting." What with hunting, fishing, salmon-spearing by torchlight, gallops over the hills into the Yarrow country, planting and transplanting of his beloved trees, Scott's life at Ashestiel, during the hours when he was "his own man," was a very full and happy one.

Unfortunately, he had already embarked in an enterprise which was destined to overthrow his fortunes just when they seemed fairest. While at school in Kelso he had become intimate with a school fellow named James Ballantyne, and later, when Ballantyne set up a small printing house in Kelso, he had given him his earliest poems to print. After the issue of the Border Minstrelsy, the typographical excellence of which attracted attention even in London, he set Ballantyne up in business in Edinburgh, secretly entering the firm himself as silent partner. The good sale of the Lay had given the firm an excellent start; but more matter was presently needed to feed the press. To supply it, Scott undertook and completed at[Pg 24] Ashestiel four enormous tasks of editing—the complete works of Dryden and of Swift, the Somers' Tracts, and the Sadler State Papers. The success of these editions, and the subsequent enormous sale of Scott's poems and novels, would have kept the concern solvent in spite of Ballantyne's complete incapacity for business, but in 1809 Scott plunged recklessly into another and more serious venture. A dispute with Constable, the veteran publisher and bookseller, aggravated by the harsh criticism delivered upon Marmion by Francis Jeffrey, editor of the Edinburgh Review, Constable's magazine, determined Scott to set up in connection with the Ballantyne press a rival bookselling concern, and a rival magazine, to be called the Quarterly Review. The project was a daring one, in view of Constable's great ability and resources; to make it foolhardy to madness Scott selected to manage the new business a brother of James Ballantyne, a dissipated little buffoon, with about as much business ability and general caliber of character as is connoted by the name which Scott coined for him, "Rigdumfunnidos." The selection of such a man for such a place betrays in Scott's eminently sane and balanced mind a curious strain of impracticality, to say the least; indeed, we are almost constrained to feel with his harsher critics that it betrays something worse than defective judgment—defective character. His greatest failing, if failing it can be called, was[Pg 25] pride. He could not endure even the mild dictations of a competent publisher, as is shown by his answer to a letter written by one of them proposing some salaried work; he replied curtly that he was a "black Hussar" of literature, and not to be put to such tame service. Probably this haughty dislike of dictation, this imperious desire to patronize rather than be patronized, led him to choose inferior men with whom to enter into business relations. If so, he paid for the fault so dearly that it is hard for a biographer to press the issue against him.

For the present, however, the wind of fortune was blowing fair, and all the storm clouds were below the horizon. In 1808 Marmion appeared, and was greeted with an enthusiasm which made the unprecedented reception of the Lay seem lukewarm in comparison. Marmion contains nothing which was not plainly foreshadowed in the Lay, but the hand of the poet has grown more sure, his descriptive effects are less crude and amateurish, the narrative proceeds with a steadier march, the music has gained in volume and in martial vigor. An anecdote is told by Mr. Hutton which will serve as a type of a hundred others illustrative of the extraordinary hold which this poetry took upon the minds of ordinary men. "I have heard," he says, "of two old men—complete strangers—passing each other on a dark London night, when one of them happened to be repeating to himself, just as[Pg 26] Campbell did to the hackney coachman of the North Bridge of Edinburgh, the last lines of the account of Flodden Field in Marmion, 'Charge, Chester, charge,' when suddenly a reply came out of the darkness, 'On, Stanley, on,' whereupon they finished the death of Marmion between them, took off their hats to each other, and parted, laughing." The Lady of the Lake, which followed in little more than a year, was received with the same popular delight, and with even greater respect on the part of the critics. Even the formidable Jeffrey, who was supposed to dine off slaughtered authors as the Giant in "Jack and the Beanstalk" dined off young Englishmen, keyed his voice to unwonted praise. The influx of tourists into the Trossachs, where the scene of the poem was laid, was so great as seriously to embarrass the mail coaches, until at last the posting charges had to be raised in order to diminish the traffic. Far away in Spain, at a trying moment of the Peninsular campaign, Sir Adam Ferguson, posted on a point of ground exposed to the enemy's fire, read to his men as they lay prostrate on the ground the passage from The Lady of the Lake describing the combat between Roderick Dhu's Highlanders and the forces of the Earl of Mar; and "the listening soldiers only interrupted him by a joyous huzza when the French shot struck the bank close above them." Such tributes—and they were legion—to the power of his poetry to move adventurous and[Pg 27] hardy men, must have been intoxicating to Scott; there is small wonder that the success of his poems gave him, as he says, "such a heeze as almost lifted him off his feet."

III

Scott's modesty was not in danger, but so far as his prudence was concerned, his success did really lift him off his feet. In 1812, still more encouraged thereto by entering upon the emoluments of the office of Clerk of Sessions, the duties of which he had performed for six years without pay, he purchased Abbotsford, an estate on the Tweed, adjoining that of the Duke of Buccleugh, his kinsman, and near the beautiful ruins of Melrose Abbey. Here he began to carry out the dream of his life, to found a territorial family which should augment the power and fame of his clan. Beginning with a modest farm house and a farm of a hundred acres, he gradually bought, planted, and built, until the farm became a manorial domain and the farm house a castle. He had not gone far in this work before he began to realize that the returns from his poetry would never suffice to meet such demands as would thus be made upon his purse. Byron's star was in the ascendant, and before its baleful magnificence Scott's milder and more genial light visibly paled. He was himself the first to declare, with characteristic generosity,[Pg 28] that the younger poet had "bet"[3] him at his own craft. As Carlyle says, "he had held the sovereignty for some half-score of years, a comparatively long lease of it, and now the time seemed come for dethronement, for abdication. An unpleasant business; which, however, he held himself ready, as a brave man will, to transact with composure and in silence."

But, as it proved, there was no need for resignation. The reign of metrical romance, brilliant but brief, was past, or nearly so. But what of prose romance, which long ago, in picking out Don Quixote from the puzzling Spanish, he had promised himself he would one day attempt? With some such questioning of the Fates, Scott drew from his desk the sheets of a story begun seven years before, and abandoned because of the success of The Lay of the Last Minstrel. This story he now completed, and published as Waverley in the spring of 1814—an event "memorable in the annals of British literature; in the annals of British bookselling thrice and four times memorable." The popularity of the metrical romances dwindled to insignificance before the enthusiasm with which this prose romance was received. A moment before quietly resolved to give up his place in the world's eye, and to live the life of an obscure country gentleman, Scott found himself launched once more on the tide of brave fortunes.[Pg 29] The Ballantyne publishing and printing houses ceased to totter, and settled themselves on what seemed the firmest of foundations. At Abbotsford, buying, planting, and building began on a greater scale than had ever been planned in its owner's most sanguine moments.

The history of the next eleven years in Scott's life is the history, on the one hand, of the rapidly-appearing novels, of a fame gradually spreading outward from Great Britain until it covered the civilized world—a fame increased rather than diminished by the incognito which the "author of Waverley" took great pains to preserve even after the secret had become an open one; on the other hand, of the large-hearted, hospitable life at Abbotsford, where, in spite of the importunities of curious and ill-bred tourists, bent on getting a glimpse of the "Wizard of the North," and in spite of the enormous mass of work, literary and official, which Scott took upon himself to perform, the atmosphere of country leisure and merriment was somehow miraculously preserved. This life of the hearty prosperous country laird was the one toward the realization of which all Scott's efforts were directed; it is worth while, therefore, to see as vividly as may be, what kind of life that was, that we may the better understand what kind of man he was who cared for it. The following extract from Lockhart's Life of Scott gives us at least one very characteristic aspect of the Abbotsford world:

Let us supplement this with one more picture, from the same hand, showing Scott in a little more intimate light. The passage was written in 1821, after Lockhart had married Scott's eldest daughter,[Pg 32] and gone to spend the summer at Chiefswood, a cottage on the Abbotsford estate:

Few events of importance except the successive appearances of "our buiks" as Tom Purdie called his master's novels, and an occasional visit to London or the continent, intervened to break the busy monotony of this Abbotsford life. On one of these visits to London, Scott was invited to dine with the Prince Regent, and when the prince became King George IV, in 1820, almost the first act of his reign was to create Scott a baronet. Scott accepted the honor gratefully, as coming, he said, "from the original source of all honor." There can well be two opinions as to whether this least admirable of English kings constituted a very prime fountain of honor, judged by democratic standards; but to Scott's mind, such an imputation would have been next to sacrilege. The feudal bias of his mind, strong to start with, had been strengthened by his long sojourn among the visions of a feudal past; the ideals of feudalism were living[Pg 34] realities to him; and he accepted knighthood from his king's hand in exactly the same spirit which determined his attitude of humility towards his "chief," the Duke of Buccleugh, and which impelled him to exhaust his genius in the effort to build up a great family estate.

There were already signs that the enormous burden of work under which he seemed to move so lightly, was telling on him. The Bride of Lammermoor, The Legend of Montrose, and Ivanhoe, had all of them been dictated between screams of pain, wrung from his lips by a chronic cramp of the stomach. By the time he reached Redgauntlet and St. Ronan's Well, there began to be heard faint murmurings of discontent from his public, hints that he was writing too fast, and that the noble wine he had poured them for so long was growing at last a trifle watery. To add to these causes of uneasiness, the commercial ventures in which he was interested drifted again into a precarious state. He had himself fallen into the bad habit of forestalling the gains from his novels by heavy drafts on his publishers, and the example thus set was followed faithfully by John Ballantyne. Scott's good humor and his partner's bad judgment saddled the concern with a lot of unsalable books. In 1818 the affairs of the book-selling business had to be closed up, Constable taking over the unsalable stock and assuming the outstanding liabilities in return for copyright privileges covering some of Scott's[Pg 35] novels. This so burdened the veteran publisher that when, in 1825, a large London firm failed, it carried him down also—and with him James Ballantyne, with whom he had entered into close relations. Scott's secret connection with Ballantyne had continued; accordingly he woke up one fine day to find himself worse than beggared, being personally liable for one hundred and thirty thousand pounds.

The years intervening between this calamity and Scott's death form one of the saddest and at the same time most heroic chapters in the history of literature. The fragile health of Lady Scott succumbed almost immediately to the crushing blow, and she died in a few months. Scott surrendered Abbotsford to his creditors and took up humble lodgings in Edinburgh. Here, with a pride and stoical courage as quiet as it was splendid, he settled down to fill with the earnings of his pen the vast gulf of debt for which he was morally scarcely responsible at all. In three years he wrote Woodstock, three Chronicles of the Canongate, the Fair Maid of Perth, Anne of Geierstein, the first series of the Tales of a Grandfather, and a Life of Napoleon, equal to thirteen volumes of novel size, besides editing and annotating a complete edition of his own works. All these together netted his creditors £40,000. Touched by the efforts he was[Pg 36] making to settle their claims, they now presented him with Abbotsford, and thither he returned to spend the few years remaining to him. In 1830 he suffered a first stroke of paralysis; refusing to give up, however, he made one more desperate rally to recapture his old power of story-telling. Count Robert of Paris and Castle Dangerous were the pathetic result; they are not to be taken into account, in any estimate of his powers, for they are manifestly the work of a paralytic patient. The gloomy picture is darkened by an incident which illustrates strikingly one phase of Scott's character.

The great Reform Bill was being discussed throughout Scotland, menacing what were really abuses, but what Scott, with his intense conservatism, believed to be sacred and inviolable institutions. The dying man roused himself to make a stand against the abominable bill. In a speech which he made at Jedburgh, he was hissed and hooted by the crowd, and he left the town with the dastardly cry of "Burk Sir Walter!" ringing in his ears.

Nature now intervened to ease the intolerable strain. Scott's anxiety concerning his debt gradually gave way to an hallucination that it had all been paid. His friends took advantage of the quietude which followed to induce him to make the journey to Italy, in the fear that the severe winter of Scotland would prove fatal. A ship of His Majesty's fleet was put at his disposal, and he set[Pg 37] sail for Malta. The youthful adventurousness of the man flared up again oddly for a moment, when he insisted on being set ashore upon a volcanic island in the Mediterranean which had appeared but a few days before and which sank beneath the surface shortly after. The climate of Malta at first appeared to benefit him; but when he heard, one day, of the death of Goethe at Weimar, he seemed seized with a sudden apprehension of his own end, and insisted upon hurrying back through Europe, in order that he might look once more on Abbotsford. On the ride from Edinburgh he remained for the first two stages entirely unconscious. But as the carriage entered the valley of the Gala he opened his eyes and murmured the name of objects as they passed, "Gala water, surely—Buckholm—Torwoodlee." When the towers of Abbotsford came in view, he was so filled with delight that he could scarcely be restrained from leaping out. At the gates he greeted faithful Laidlaw in a voice strong and hearty as of old: "Why, man, how often I have thought of you!" and smiled and wept over the dogs who came rushing as in bygone times to lick his hand. He died a few days later, on the afternoon of a glorious autumn day, with all the windows open, so that he might catch to the last the whisper of the Tweed over its pebbles.

"And so," says Carlyle, "the curtain falls; and the strong Walter Scott is with us no more. A[Pg 38] possession from him does remain; widely scattered; yet attainable; not inconsiderable. It can be said of him, when he departed, he took a Man's life along with him. No sounder piece of British manhood was put together in that eighteenth century of Time. Alas, his fine Scotch face, with its shaggy honesty, sagacity and goodness, when we saw it latterly on the Edinburgh streets, was all worn with care, the joy all fled from it—plowed deep with labor and sorrow. We shall never forget it; we shall never see it again. Adieu, Sir Walter, pride of all Scotchmen, take our proud and sad farewell."

FOOTNOTES:

[1] See Scott's ballad "The Eve of St. John."

[2] Asked.

[3] Bested, got the better of.

[Pg 39] II. SCOTT'S PLACE IN THE ROMANTIC MOVEMENT

In order rightly to appreciate the poetry of Scott it is necessary to understand something of that remarkable "Romantic Movement" which took place toward the end of the eighteenth century, and within a space of twenty-five years completely changed the face of English literature. Both the causes and the effects of this movement were much more than merely literary; the "romantic revival" penetrated every crevice and ramification of life in those parts of Europe which it affected; its social, political, and religious results were all deeply significant. But we must here confine ourselves to such aspects of the revival as showed themselves in English poetry.

Eighteenth century poetry had been distinguished by its polish, its formal correctness, or—to use a term in much favor with critics of that day—its "elegance." The various and wayward metrical effects of the Elizabethan and Jacobean poets had been discarded for a few well-recognized verse forms, which themselves in turn had become still further limited by the application to them of precise rules of structure. Hand in hand with this restricting process in meter, had gone a similar[Pg 40] tendency in diction. The simple, concrete phrases of daily speech had given way to stately periphrases; the rich and riotous vocabulary of earlier poetry had been replaced by one more decorous, measured, and high-sounding. A corresponding process of selection and exclusion was applied to the subject matter of poetry. Passion, lyric exaltation, delight in the concrete life of man and nature, passed out of fashion; in their stead came social satire, criticism, generalized observation. While the classical influence, as it is usually called, was at its height, with such men as Dryden and Pope to exemplify it, it did a great work; but toward the end of the eighth decade of the eighteenth century it had visibly run to seed. The feeble Hayley, the silly Della Crusca, the arid Erasmus Darwin, were its only exemplars. England was ripe for a literary revolution, a return to nature and to passion; and such a revolution was not slow in coming.

It announced itself first in George Crabbe, who turned to paint the life of the poor with patient realism; in Burns, who poured out in his songs the passion of love, the passion of sorrow, the passion of conviviality; in Blake, who tried to reach across the horizon of visible fact to mystical heavens of more enduring reality. Following close upon these men came the four poets destined to accomplish the revolution which the early comers had begun. They were born within four years of each other, Wordsworth in 1770, Scott in 1771, Coleridge in[Pg 41] 1772, Southey in 1774. As we look at these four men now, and estimate their worth as poets, we see that Southey drops almost out of the account, and that Wordsworth and Coleridge stand, so far as the highest qualities of poetry go, far above Scott, as, indeed, Blake and Burns do also. But the contemporary judgment upon them was directly the reverse; and Scott's poetry exercised an influence over his age immeasurably greater than that of any of the other three. Let us attempt to discover what qualities this poetry possessed which gave it its astonishing hold upon the age when it was written. In so doing, we may discover indirectly some of the reasons why it still retains a large portion of its popularity, and perhaps arrive at some grounds of judgment by which we may test its right thereto.

One reason why Scott's poetry was immediately welcomed, while that of Wordsworth and of Coleridge lay neglected, is to be found in the fact that in the matter of diction Scott was much less revolutionary than they. By nature and education he was conservative; he put The Lay of the Last Minstrel into the mouth of a rude harper of the North in order to shield himself from the charge of "attempting to set up a new school in poetry," and he never throughout his life violated the conventions, literary or social, if he could possibly avoid doing so. This bias toward conservatism and conventionality shows itself particularly in the[Pg 42] language of his poems. He was compelled, of course, to use much more concrete and vivid terms than the eighteenth century poets had used, because he was dealing with much more concrete and vivid matter; but his language, nevertheless, has a prevailing stateliness, and at times an artificiality, which recommended it to readers tired of the inanities of Hayley and Mason, but unwilling to accept the startling simplicity and concreteness of diction exemplified by the Lake poets at their best.

Another peculiarity of Scott's poetry which made powerfully for its popularity, was its spirited meter. People were weary of the heroic couplet, and turned eagerly to these hurried verses, that went on their way with the sharp tramp of moss-troopers, and heated the blood like a drum. The meters of Coleridge, subtle, delicate, and poignant, had been passed by with indifference—had not been heard perhaps, for lack of ears trained to hear; but Scott's metrical effects were such as a child could appreciate, and a soldier could carry in his head.

Analogous to this treatment of meter, though belonging to a less formal side of his art, was Scott's treatment of nature, the landscape setting of his stories. Perhaps the most obvious feature of the romantic revival was a reawakening of interest in out-door nature. It was as if for a hundred years past people had been stricken blind as soon as they passed from the city streets into[Pg 43] the country. A trim garden, an artfully placed country house, a well-kept preserve, they might see; but for the great shaggy world of mountain and sea—it had been shut out of man's elegant vision. Before Scott began to write there had been no lack of prophets of the new nature-worship, but none of them of a sort to catch the general ear. Wordsworth's pantheism was too mystical, too delicate and intuitive, to recommend itself to any but chosen spirits; Crabbe's descriptions were too minute, Coleridge's too intense, to please. Scott was the first to paint nature with a broad, free touch, without raptures or philosophizing, but with a healthy pleasure in its obvious beauties, such as appeal to average men. His "scenery" seldom exists for its own sake, but serves, as it should, for background and setting of his story. As his readers followed the fortunes of William of Deloraine or Roderick Dhu, they traversed by sunlight and by moonlight landscapes of wild romantic charm, and felt their beauty quite naturally, as a part of the excitement of that wild life. They felt it the more readily because of a touch of artificial stateliness in the handling, a slight theatrical heightening of effect—from an absolute point of view a defect, but highly congenial to the taste of the time. It was the scenic side of nature which Scott gave, and gave inimitably, while Burns was piercing to the inner heart of her tenderness in his lines "To a Mountain[Pg 44] Daisy" and "To a Mouse," while Wordsworth was mystically communing with her soul, in his "Tintern Abbey." It was the scenic side of nature for which the perceptions of men were ripe; so they left profounder poets to their musings, and followed after the poet who could give them a brilliant story set in a brilliant scene.

Again, the emotional key to Scott's poetry was on a comprehensible plane. The situations with which he deals, the passions, ambitions, satisfactions, which he portrays, belong, in one form or another, to all men, or at least are easily grasped by the imaginations of all men. It has often been said that Scott is the most Homeric of English poets; so far as the claim rests on considerations of style, it is hardly to be granted, for nothing could be farther than the hurrying torrent of Scott's verse from the "long and refluent music" of Homer. But in this other respect, that he deals in the rudimentary stuff of human character in a straightforward way, without a hint of modern complexities and super-subtleties, he is really akin to the master poet of antiquity. This, added to the crude wild life which he pictures, the vigorous sweep of his action, the sincere glow of romance which bathes his story—all so tonic in their effect upon minds long used to the stuffy decorum of didactic poetry, completed the triumph of The Lay of the Last Minstrel, Marmion, and The Lady of the Lake, over their age.

[Pg 45]As has been already suggested, Scott cannot be put in the first rank of poets. No compromise can be made on this point, because upon it the whole theory of poetry depends. Neither on the formal nor on the essential sides of his art is he among the small company of the supreme. And no one understood this better than himself. He touched the keynote of his own power, though with too great modesty, when he said, "I am sensible that if there is anything good about my poetry ... it is a hurried frankness of composition which pleases soldiers, sailors, and young people of bold and active dispositions." The poet Campbell, who was so fascinated by Scott's ballad of "Cadyow Castle" that he used to repeat it aloud on the North Bridge of Edinburgh until "the whole fraternity of coachmen knew him by tongue as he passed," characterizes the predominant charm of Scott's poetry as lying in a "strong, pithy eloquence," which is perhaps only another name for "hurried frankness of composition." If this is not the highest quality to which poetry can attain, it is a very admirable one; and it will be a sad day for the English-speaking race when there shall not be found persons of every age and walk of life, to take the same delights in these stirring poems as their author loved to think was taken by "soldiers, sailors, and young people of bold and active dispositions."

[Pg 46] III. THE LADY OF THE LAKE

1. HISTORICAL SETTING

The Lady of the Lake deals with a distinct epoch in the life of King James V of Scotland, and has lying back of it a considerable amount of historical fact, an understanding of which will help in the appreciation of the poem. During his minority the King was under the tutelage of Archibald Douglas, sixth Earl of Angus, who had married the King's mother. The young monarch chafed for a long time under this authority, but the Douglases were so powerful that he was unable to shake it off, in spite of several desperate attempts on the part of his sympathizers to rescue him. In 1528 the King, then sixteen years of age, escaped from his own castle of Falkland to Stirling Castle. The governor of Stirling, an enemy of the Douglas family, received him joyfully. There soon gathered about his standard a sufficient number of powerful peers to enable him to depose the Earl of Angus from the regency and to banish him and all his family to England. The Douglas who figures in the poem is an imaginary uncle of the banished regent, and himself under the ban, compelled to hide away in the shelter provided for him by Roderick Dhu on the lonely island in Loch[Pg 47] Katrine. He is represented as having been loved and trusted by King James during the boyhood of the latter, before the enmity sprang up between the house of Angus and the throne. This enmity, to quote from the History of the House of Douglas, published at Edinburgh in 1743, "was so inveterate, that numerous as their allies were, their nearest friends, even in the most remote parts of Scotland, durst not entertain them, unless under the strictest and closest disguise."

The outlawed border chieftain, Roderick Dhu, who gives shelter to the persecuted Douglas, is a fictitious character, but one entirely typical of the time and place. The expedition undertaken by the young King against the Border clans, under the guise of a hunting party, is in part, at least, historic. Pitscottie's History says: "In 1529 James V made a convention at Edinburgh for the purpose of considering the best mode of quelling the Border robbers, who, during the license of his minority and the troubles which followed, had committed many exorbitances. Accordingly, he assembled a flying army of ten thousand men, consisting of his principal nobility and their followers, who were directed to bring their hawks and dogs with them, that the monarch might refresh himself with sport during the intervals of military execution. With this array he swept through Ettrick forest, where he hanged over the gate of his own castle Piers Cockburn of[Pg 48] Henderland, who had prepared, according to tradition, a feast for his reception."

2. GENERAL CRITICISM AND ANALYSIS

The Lady of the Lake appeared in 1810. Two years before, Marmion had vastly increased the popular enthusiasm aroused by The Lay of the Last Minstrel, and the success of his second long poem had so exhilarated Scott that, as he says, he "felt equal to anything and everything." To one of his kinswomen, who urged him not to jeopardize his fame by another effort in the same kind, he gaily quoted the words of Montrose:

He either fears his fate too much
Or his deserts are small,
Who dares not put it to the touch,
To win or lose it all.

The result justified his confidence; for not only was The Lady of the Lake as successful as its predecessors, but it remains the most sterling of Scott's poems. The somewhat cheap supernaturalism of the Lay appears in it only for a moment; both the story and the characters are of a less theatrical type than in Marmion; and it has a glow, animation, and onset, which was denied to the later poems, Rokeby and The Lord of the Isles.

The following outline abridged from the excellent one given by Francis Jeffrey in the Edinburgh[Pg 49] Review for August, 1810, will be useful as a basis for criticism of the matter and style of the poem.

From this outline, it will be evident that Scott had gained greatly in narrative power since the production of The Lay of the Last Minstrel. Not only are the elements of the "fable" (to use the word in its old-fashioned sense) harmonious and probable, but the various incidents grow out of each other in a natural and necessary way. The Lay was at best a skillful bit of carpentering whereof the several parts were nicely juxtaposed; The Lady of the Lake is an organism, and its several members partake of a common life. A few weaknesses may, it is true, be pointed out in it. The warning of Fitz-James by the mad woman's song makes too large a draft upon our romantic credulity. Her appearance is at once so accidental and so opportune that it resembles those supernatural interventions employed by ancient tragedy to cut the knot of a difficult situation, which have given rise to the phrase deus ex machina. The improbability of the episode is further increased by the fact that she puts her warning in the form of a song. Scott's love of romantic episode manifestly led him astray here. Further, the story as a whole shares with all stories which turn upon the[Pg 55] revelation of a concealed identity, the disadvantage of being able to affect the reader powerfully but once, since on a second reading the element of suspense and surprise is lacking. In so far as The Lady of the Lake is a mere story, or as it has been called, a "versified novelette," this is not a weakness; but in so far as it is a poem, with the claim which poetry legitimately makes to be read and reread for its intrinsic beauty, it constitutes a real defect.

Not only does this poem, with the slight exceptions just mentioned, show a gain over the earlier poems in narrative power, but it also marks an advance in character delineation. The characters of the Lay are, with one or two exceptions, mere lay-figures; Lord Cranstoun and Margaret are the most conventional of lovers; William of Deloraine is little more than an animated suit of armor, and the Lady of Branksome, except at one point, when from her walls she defies the English invaders, is nearly or quite featureless. With the characters of The Lady of the Lake the case is very different. The three rivals for Ellen's hand are real men, with individualities which enhance and deepen the picturesqueness of each other by contrast. The easy grace and courtly chivalry, of the disguised King, the quick kindling of his fancy at sight of the mysterious maid of Loch Katrine, his quick generosity in relinquishing his suit when he finds that she loves[Pg 56] another, make him one of the most life-like figures of romance. Roderick Dhu, nursing darkly his clannish hatreds, his hopeless love, and his bitter jealousy, with a delicate chivalry sending its bright thread through the tissue of his savage nature, is drawn with an equally convincing hand. Against his gloomy figure the boyish magnanimity of Malcolm Graeme, Ellen's brave faithfulness, made human by a surface play of coquetry, and the quiet nobility of the exiled Douglas, stand out in varied relief. Judged in connection with the more conventional character types of Marmion, and with the draped automatons of the Lay, the characters of The Lady of the Lake show the gradual growth in Scott of that dramatic imagination which was later to fill the vast scene of his prose romances with unforgettable figures.

But the most significant advance which this poem shows over earlier work is in the greater genuineness of the poetic effect. In the description, for example, of the approach of Roderick Dhu's boats to the island, there is a singular depth of race feeling. There is borne in upon us, as we read, the realization of a wild and peculiar civilization; we get a breath of poetry keen and strange, like the shrilling of the bag-pipes across the water. Again, in the speeding of the fiery cross there is a primitive depth of poetry which carries with it a sense of "old, unhappy, far-off things"; it appeals to latent memories in us,[Pg 57] which have been handed down from an ancestral past. There is nothing in either The Lay of the Last Minstrel or Marmion to compare for natural dramatic force with the situation in The Lady of the Lake when Roderick Dhu whistles for his clansmen to appear, and the astonished Fitz-James sees the lonely mountain side suddenly bristle with tartans and spears; and the fight which follows at the ford is a real fight, in a sense not at all to be applied to the tournaments and other conventional encounters of the earlier poems. Even where Scott still clung to supernatural devices to help along his story, he handles them with much greater subtlety than he had done in his earlier efforts. The dropping of Douglas's sword from its scabbard when his disguised enemy enters the room, arouses the imagination without burdening it. It has the same imaginative advantage over such an episode as that in the Lay, where the ghost of the wizard comes to bear off the goblin page, as suggestion always has over explicit statement. This gain in subtlety of treatment will be made still more apparent by comparing with any supernatural episode of the Lay, the account in The Lady of the Lake of the unearthly parentage of Brian the Hermit.

The gain in style is less perceptible. Scott was never a great stylist; he struck out at the very first a nervous, hurrying meter, and a strong though rather commonplace diction, upon which[Pg 58] he never substantially improved. Abundant action, rapid transitions, stirring descriptions, common sentiments and ordinary language heightened by a dash of pomp and novelty, above all a pervading animation, spirit, intrepidity—these are the constant elements of Scott's success, present here in their accustomed measure. In the broader sense of style, however, where the word is understood to include all the processes leading to a given poetical effect, The Lady of the Lake has some advantage, even over Marmion. It contains nothing, to be sure, so fine or so typical of Scott's peculiar power, as the account of the Battle of Flodden in Marmion; the minstrel's recital of the battle of Beal' an Duine does not abide the comparison. The quieter parts of The Lady of the Lake, moreover, are sometimes disfigured by a sentimentality and "prettiness" happily unfrequent with Scott. But the description of the approach of Roderick Dhu's war-boats, already mentioned, the superb landscape delineation in the fifth canto, and the beautiful twilight ending of canto third, can well stand as prime types of Scott's stylistic power.

[Pg 59] THE LADY OF THE LAKE

CANTO FIRST

THE CHASE

Harp of the North! that moldering long hast hung
On the witch-elm that shades Saint Fillan's spring,note
And down the fitful breeze thy numbers flung,
Till envious ivy did around thee cling,
5 Muffling with verdant ringlet every string—
O Minstrel Harp, still must thine accents sleep?
Mid rustling leaves and fountains murmuring,
Still must thy sweeter sounds their silence keep,
Nor bid a warrior smile, nor teach a maid to weep?

10 Not thus, in ancient days of Caledon,note
Was thy voice mute amid the festal crowd,
When lay of hopeless love, or glory won,
Aroused the fearful, or subdued the proud.
[Pg 60] At each according pause, was heard aloud
15 Thine ardent symphony sublime and high!
Fair dames and crested chiefs attention bowed;
For still the burden of thy minstrelsy
Was Knighthood's dauntless deed, and Beauty's matchless eye.

O wake once more! how rude soe'er the hand
20 That ventures o'er thy magic maze to stray;
O wake once more! though scarce my skill command
Some feeble echoing of thine earlier lay;
Though harsh and faint, and soon to die away,
And all unworthy of thy nobler strain,
25 Yet if one heart throb higher at its sway,
The wizard note has not been touched in vain.
Then silent be no more! Enchantress, wake again!

The stag at eve had drunk his fill,
Where danced the moon on Monan's rill,note
30 And deep his midnight lair had made
In lone Glenartney's hazel shade;note
But, when the sun his beacon red
Had kindled on Benvoirlich's head,note
The deep-mouthed bloodhound's heavy bay
35 Resounded up the rocky way,
And faint, from farther distance borne,
Were heard the clanging hoof and horn.

[Pg 61] II

As Chief, who hears his warder call
"To arms! the foemen storm the wall,"
40 The antlered monarch of the waste
Sprung from his heathery couch in haste.
But ere his fleet career he took,
The dew-drops from his flanks he shook;
Like crested leader proud and high,
45 Tossed his beamed frontlet to the sky;
A moment gazed adown the dale,
A moment snuffed the tainted gale,
A moment listened to the cry,
That thickened as the chase drew nigh;
50 Then, as the headmost foes appeared,
With one brave bound the copse he cleared,
And, stretching forward free and far,
Sought the wild heaths of Uam-Var.note

III

Yelled on the view the opening pack;
55 Rock, glen, and cavern, paid them back;
To many a mingled sound at once
The awakened mountain gave response.
A hundred dogs bayed deep and strong,
Clattered a hundred steeds along,
60 Their peal the merry horns rung out,
A hundred voices joined the shout;
With hark and whoop and wild halloo,
No rest Benvoirlich's echoes knew.
[Pg 62] Far from the tumult fled the roe;
65 Close in her covert cowered the doe;
The falcon, from her cairn on high,
Cast on the rout a wondering eye,
Till far beyond her piercing ken
The hurricane had swept the glen.
70 Faint, and more faint, its failing din
Returned from cavern, cliff, and linn,note
And silence settled, wide and still,
On the lone wood and mighty hill.

Less loud the sounds of silvan war
75 Disturbed the heights of Uam-Var,
And roused the cavern, where, 'tis told,
A giant made his den of old;
For ere that steep ascent was won,
High in his pathway hung the sun,
80 And many a gallant, stayed perforce,
Was fain to breathe his faltering horse,
And of the trackers of the deer,
Scarce half the lessening pack was near;
So shrewdly on the mountain side,
85 Had the bold burst their mettle tried.

The noble stag was pausing now
Upon the mountain's southern brow,
Where broad extended, far beneath,
The varied realms of fair Menteith.note
90 [Pg 63] With anxious eye he wandered o'er
Mountain and meadow, moss and moor,
And pondered refuge from his toil,
By far Lochard or Aberfoyle.note
But nearer was the copsewood grey,
95 That waved and wept on Loch-Achray,note
And mingled with the pine-trees blue
On the bold cliffs of Benvenue.note
Fresh vigor with the hope returned,
With flying foot the heath he spurned,
100 Held westward with unwearied race,
And left behind the panting chase.

'Twere long to tell what steeds gave o'er,
As swept the hunt through Cambusmore;note
What reins were tightened in despair,
105 When rose Benledi's ridge in air;note
Who flagged upon Bochastle's heath,note
Who shunned to stem the flooded Teith—
For twice that day, from shore to shore,
The gallant stag swam stoutly o'er.
110 Few were the stragglers, following far,
That reached the lake of Vennachar;
And when the Brigg of Turk was won,note
The headmost horseman rode alone.

VII

Alone, but with unbated zeal,
115 That horseman plied the scourge and steel;
[Pg 64] For jaded now, and spent with toil,
Embossed with foam, and dark with soil,
While every gasp with sobs he drew,
The laboring stag strained full in view.
120 Two dogs of black Saint Hubert's breed,note
Unmatched for courage, breath, and speed,
Fast on his flying traces came,
And all but won that desperate game;
For, scarce a spear's length from his haunch,
125 Vindictive, toiled the bloodhounds stanch;
Nor nearer might the dogs attain,
Nor farther might the quarry strain.
Thus up the margin of the lake,
Between the precipice and brake,
130 O'er stock and rock their race they take.

VIII

The Hunter marked that mountain high,
The lone lake's western boundary,
And deemed the stag must turn to bay,
Where that huge rampart barred the way;
135 Already glorying in the prize,
Measured his antlers with his eyes;
For the death-wound and the death-halloo,
Mustered his breath, his whinyard drew—note
But thundering as he came prepared,
140 With ready arm and weapon bared,
The wily quarry shunned the shock,
And turned him from the opposing rock;
[Pg 65] Then, dashing down a darksome glen,
Soon lost to hound and Hunter's ken,
145 In the deep Trossachs' wildest nooknote
His solitary refuge took.
There, while close couched, the thicket shed
Cold dews and wild-flowers on his head,
He heard the baffled dogs in vain
150 Rave through the hollow pass amain,
Chiding the rocks that yelled again.

Close on the hounds the Hunter came,
To cheer them on the vanished game;
But, stumbling in the rugged dell,
155 The gallant horse exhausted fell.
The impatient rider strove in vain
To rouse him with the spur and rein,
For the good steed, his labors o'er,
Stretched his stiff limbs, to rise no more;
160 Then, touched with pity and remorse,
He sorrowed o'er the expiring horse.
"I little thought, when first thy rein
I slacked upon the banks of Seine,
That Highland eagle e'er should feed
165 On thy fleet limbs, my matchless steed!
Woe worth the chase, woe worth the day,note
That costs thy life, my gallant gray!"

[Pg 66] X

Then through the dell his horn resounds,
From vain pursuit to call the hounds.
170 Back limped, with slow and crippled pace,
The sulky leaders of the chase;
Close to their master's side they pressed,
With drooping tail and humbled crest;
But still the dingle's hollow throat
175 Prolonged the swelling bugle-note.
The owlets started from their dream,
The eagles answered with their scream,
Round and around the sounds were cast,note
Till echo seemed an answering blast;
180 And on the Hunter hied his way,
To join some comrades of the day;
Yet often paused, so strange the road,
So wondrous were the scenes it showed.

The western waves of ebbing day
185 Rolled o'er the glen their level way;
Each purple peak, each flinty spire,
Was bathed in floods of living fire.
But not a setting beam could glow
Within the dark ravines below,
190 Where twined the path in shadow hid,
Round many a rocky pyramid,
Shooting abruptly from the dell
Its thunder-splintered pinnacle;
[Pg 67] Round many an insulated mass,
195 The native bulwarks of the pass,
Huge as the tower which builders vainnote
Presumptuous piled on Shinar's plain.
The rocky summits, split and rent,
Formed turret, dome, or battlement,
200 Or seemed fantastically set
With cupola or minaret,
Wild crests as pagod ever decked,
Or mosque of Eastern architect.
Nor were these earth-born castles bare,
205 Nor lacked they many a banner fair;
For, from their shivered brows displayed,
Far o'er the unfathomable glade,
All twinkling with the dewdrops sheen,note
The brier-rose fell in streamers green,
210 And creeping shrubs, of thousand dyes,
Waved in the west-wind's summer sighs.

XII

Boon nature scattered, free and wild,
Each plant or flower, the mountain's child.
Here eglantine embalmed the air,
215 Hawthorn and hazel mingled there;
The primrose pale and violet flower,
Found in each cliff a narrow bower;
Fox-glove and night-shade, side by side,
Emblems of punishment and pride,
220 [Pg 68] Grouped their dark hues with every stain
The weather-beaten crags retain.
With boughs that quaked at every breath,
Grey birch and aspen wept beneath;
Aloft, the ash and warrior oak
225 Cast anchor in the rifted rock;
And, higher yet, the pine-tree hung
His shattered trunk, and frequent flung,note
Where seemed the cliffs to meet on high,
His bows athwart the narrowed sky.
230 Highest of all, where white peaks glanced,
Where glist'ning streamers waved and danced,
The wanderer's eye could barely view
The summer heaven's delicious blue;
So wondrous wild, the whole might seem
235 The scenery of a fairy dream.

XIII

Onward, amid the copse 'gan peep
A narrow inlet, still and deep,
Affording scarce such breadth of brim
As served the wild duck's brood to swim.
240 Lost for a space, through thickets veering,
But broader when again appearing,
Tall rocks and tufted knolls their face
Could on the dark-blue mirror trace;
And farther as the Hunter strayed,
245 Still broader sweep its channels made.
[Pg 69] The shaggy mounds no longer stood,
Emerging from entangled wood,
But, wave-encircled, seemed to float,
Like castle girdled with its moat;
250 Yet broader floods extending still
Divide them from their parent hill,
Till each, retiring, claims to be
An islet in an inland sea.

XIV

And now, to issue from the glen,
255 No pathway meets the wanderer's ken,
Unless he climb, with footing nice,note
A far projecting precipice.
The broom's tough roots his ladder made,
The hazel saplings lent their aid;
260 And thus an airy point he won,
Where, gleaming with the setting sun,
One burnished sheet of living gold,
Loch Katrine lay beneath him rolled,
In all her length far winding lay,
265 With promontory, creek, and bay,
And island that, empurpled bright,
Floated amid the livelier light,
And mountains, that like giants stand,
To sentinel enchanted land.
270 High on the south, huge Benvenue
Down on the lake in masses threw
Crags, knolls, and mounds, confusedly hurled,
[Pg 70] The fragments of an earlier world;
A wildering forest feathered o'er
275 His ruined sides and summit hoar,
While on the north, through middle air,
Ben-an heaved high his forehead bare.

From the steep promontory gazed
The stranger, raptured and amazed,
280 And, "What a scene were here," he cried,
"For princely pomp, or churchman's pride!
On this bold brow, a lordly tower;
In that soft vale, a lady's bower;
On yonder meadow, far away,
285 The turrets of a cloister gray;
How blithely might the bugle-horn
Chide, on the lake, the lingering morn!
How sweet, at eve, the lover's lute
Chime, when the groves were still and mute!
290 And when the midnight moon should lave
Her forehead in the silver wave,
How solemn on the ear would come
The holy matin's distant hum,
While the deep peal's commanding tone
295 Should wake, in yonder islet lone,
A sainted hermit from his cell,
To drop a bead with every knell—
And bugle, lute, and bell, and all,
[Pg 71] Should each bewildered stranger call
300 To friendly feast, and lighted hall.

XVI

"Blithe were it then to wander here!
But now—beshrew yon nimble deer—
Like that same hermit's, thin and spare,
The copse must give my evening fare;
305 Some mossy bank my couch must be,
Some rustling oak my canopy.
Yet pass we that; the war and chase
Give little choice of resting-place—
A summer night, in greenwood spent,
310 Were but tomorrow's merriment:
But hosts may in these wilds abound,
Such as are better missed than found;
To meet with Highland plunderers here,note
Were worse than loss of steed or deer.
315 I am alone; my bugle-strain
May call some straggler of the train;
Or, fall the worst that may betide,
Ere now this falchion has been tried."

XVII

But scarce again his horn he wound,
320 When lo! forth starting at the sound,
From underneath an aged oak,
That slanted from the islet rock,
[Pg 72] A damsel guider of its way,
A little skiff shot to the bay,
325 That round the promontory steep
Led its deep line in graceful sweep,
Eddying, in almost viewless wave,
The weeping willow-twig to lave,
And kiss, with whispering sound and slow,
330 The beach of pebbles bright as snow.
The boat had touched the silver strand,
Just as the Hunter left his stand,
And stood concealed amid the brake,
To view this Lady of the Lake.
335 The maiden paused, as if again
She thought to catch the distant strain.
With head upraised, and look intent,
And eye and ear attentive bent,
And locks flung back, and lips apart,
340 Like monument of Grecian art,
In listening mood, she seemed to stand,
The guardian Naiad of the strand.

XVIII

And ne'er did Grecian chisel trace
A Nymph, a Naiad, or a Grace
345 Of finer form or lovelier face!
What though the sun, with ardent frown,
Had slightly tinged her cheek with brown—
The sportive toil, which, short and light,
Had dyed her glowing hue so bright,
350 [Pg 73] Served too in hastier swell to show
Short glimpses of a breast of snow.
What though no rule of courtly grace
To measured mood had trained her pace,—
A foot more light, a step more true,
355 Ne'er from the heath-flower dashed the dew;
E'en the slight harebell raised its head,
Elastic from her airy tread.
What though upon her speech there hung
The accents of the mountain tongue—
360 Those silver sounds, so soft, so dear,
The listener held his breath to hear!

XIX

A chieftain's daughter seemed the maid;
Her satin snood, her silken plaid,note
Her golden brooch such birth betrayed.
365 And seldom was a snood amid
Such wild luxuriant ringlets hid,
Whose glossy black to shame might bring
The plumage of the raven's wing;
And seldom o'er a breast so fair,
370 Mantled a plaid with modest care,
And never brooch the folds combined
Above a heart more good and kind.
Her kindness and her worth to spy,
You need but gaze on Ellen's eye;
375 Not Katrine, in her mirror blue,
Gives back the shaggy banks more true,
[Pg 74] Than every free-born glance confessed
The guileless movements of her breast;
Whether joy danced in her dark eye,
380 Or woe or pity claimed a sigh,
Or filial love was glowing there,
Or meek devotion poured a prayer,
Or tale of injury called forth
The indignant spirit of the North.
385 One only passion unrevealed,
With maiden pride the maid concealed,
Yet not less purely felt the flame—
Oh! need I tell that passion's name!

Impatient of the silent horn,
390 Now on the gale her voice was borne:
"Father!" she cried; the rocks around
Loved to prolong the gentle sound.
A while she paused, no answer came—
"Malcolm, was thine the blast?" the name
395 Less resolutely uttered fell,
The echoes could not catch the swell.
"A stranger I," the Huntsman said,
Advancing from the hazel shade.
The maid, alarmed, with hasty oar,
400 Pushed her light shallop from the shore,
And when a space was gained between,
[Pg 75] Closer she drew her bosom's screen—
So forth the startled swan would swing,
So turn to prune his ruffled wing.
405 Then safe, though fluttered and amazed,
She paused, and on the stranger gazed.
Not his the form, nor his the eye,
That youthful maidens wont to fly.

XXI

On his bold visage middle age
410 Had slightly pressed its signet sage,
Yet had not quenched the open truth
And fiery vehemence of youth;
Forward and frolic glee was there,
The will to do, the soul to dare,
415 The sparkling glance, soon blown to fire,
Of hasty love, or headlong ire.
His limbs were cast in manly mold,
For hardy sports or contest bold;
And though in peaceful garb arrayed,
420 And weaponless, except his blade,
His stately mien as well implied
A high-born heart, a martial pride,
As if a Baron's crest he wore,
And sheathed in armor trod the shore.
425 Slighting the petty need he showed,
He told of his benighted road;
His ready speech flowed fair and free,
In phrase of gentlest courtesy;
Yet seemed that tone, and gesture bland,
430 Less used to sue than to command.

[Pg 76] XXII

A while the maid the stranger eyed,
And, reassured, at length replied,
That Highland halls were open still
To wildered wanderers of the hill.
435 "Nor think you unexpected come
To yon lone isle, our desert home;
Before the heath had lost the dew,
This morn, a couch was pulled for you;note
On yonder mountain's purple head
440 Have ptarmigan and heath-cock bled,note
And our broad nets have swept the mere,
To furnish forth your evening cheer."
"Now, by the rood, my lovely maid,
Your courtesy has erred," he said;
445 "No right have I to claim, misplaced,
The welcome of expected guest.
A wanderer here, by fortune tost,
My way, my friends, my courser lost,
I ne'er before, believe me, fair,
450 Have ever drawn your mountain air,
Till on this lake's romantic strand,
I found a fay in fairy land!"

XXIII

"I well believe," the maid replied,
As her light skiff approached the side,
455 "I well believe, that ne'er before
Your foot has trod Loch Katrine's shore;
[Pg 77] But yet, as far as yesternight,
Old Allan-bane foretold your plight,
A gray-haired sire, whose eye intent
460 Was on the visioned future bent.note
He saw your steed, a dappled gray,
Lie dead beneath the birchen way;
Painted exact your form and mien,
Your hunting suit of Lincoln green,
465 That tasselled horn so gaily gilt,
That falchion's crooked blade and hilt,
That cap with heron plumage trim,
And yon two hounds so dark and grim.
He bade that all should ready be,
470 To grace a guest of fair degree;
But light I held his prophecy,
And deemed it was my father's horn,
Whose echoes o'er the lake were borne."

XXIV

The stranger smiled: "Since to your home
475 A destined errant-knight I come,
Announced by prophet sooth and old,
Doomed, doubtless, for achievement bold,
I'll lightly front each high emprise,
For one kind glance of those bright eyes.
480 Permit me, first, the task to guide
Your fairy frigate o'er the tide."
The maid with smile suppressed and sly,
The toil unwonted saw him try;
[Pg 78] For seldom sure, if e'er before,
485 His noble hand had grasped an oar.
Yet with main strength his strokes he drew,
And o'er the lake the shallop flew;
With heads erect, and whimpering cry,
The hounds behind their passage ply.
490 Nor frequent does the bright oar break
The dark'ning mirror of the lake,
Until the rocky isle they reach,
And moor their shallop on the beach.

XXV

The stranger viewed the shore around,
495 'Twas all so close with copsewood bound,
Nor track nor pathway might declare
That human foot frequented there,
Until the mountain-maiden showed
A clambering, unsuspected road,
500 That winded through the tangled screen,
And opened on a narrow green,
Where weeping birch and willow round
With their long fibres swept the ground.
Here, for retreat in dangerous hour,note
505 Some chief had framed a rustic bower.

XXVI

It was a lodge of ample size,
But strange of structure and device;
Of such materials as around
The workman's hand had readiest found.
510 [Pg 79] Lopped of their boughs, their hoar trunks bared,
And by the hatchet rudely squared,
To give the walls their destined height,
The sturdy oak and ash unite;
While moss and clay and leaves combined
515 To fence each crevice from the wind.
The lighter pine-trees overhead,
Their slender length for rafters spread,
And withered heath and rushes dry
Supplied a russet canopy.
520 Due westward, fronting to the green,
A rural portico was seen,
Aloft on native pillars borne,
Of mountain fir with bark unshorn,
Where Ellen's hand had taught to twine
525 The ivy and Idaean vine,
The clematis, the favored flower
Which boasts the name of virgin-bower,
And every hardy plant could bear
Loch Katrine's keen and searching air.
530 An instant in this porch she stayed
And gaily to the stranger said,
"On heaven and on thy lady call,
And enter the enchanted hall!"

XXVII

"My hope, my heaven, my trust must be,
535 My gentle guide, in following thee."
He crossed the threshold—and a clang
Of angry steel that instant rang.
[Pg 80] To his bold brow his spirit rushed,
But soon for vain alarm he blushed,
540 When on the floor he saw displayed,
Cause of the din, a naked blade
Dropped from the sheath, that careless flung
Upon a stag's huge antlers swung;
For all around, the walls to grace,
545 Hung trophies of the fight or chase:
A target there, a bugle here,note
A battle-ax, a hunting spear,
And broadswords, bows, and arrows store,
With the tusked trophies of the boar.
550 Here grins the wolf as when he died,
And there the wild-cat's brindled hide
The frontlet of the elk adorns,
Or mantles o'er the bison's horns;
Pennons and flags defaced and stained,
555 That blackening streaks of blood retained,
And deer-skins, dappled, dun, and white,
With otter's fur and seal's unite,
In rude and uncouth tapestry all,
To garnish forth the silvan hall.

XXVIII

560 The wondering stranger round him gazed,
And next the fallen weapon raised—
Few were the arms whose sinewy strength,
Sufficed to stretch it forth at length.
[Pg 81] And as the brand he poised and swayed,
565 "I never knew but one," he said,
"Whose stalwart arm might brook to wieldnote
A blade like this in battle-field."
She sighed, then smiled and took the word:
"You see the guardian champion's sword;
570 As light it trembles in his hand,
As in my grasp a hazel wand;
My sire's tall form might grace the part
Of Ferragus, or Ascabart;note
But in the absent giant's hold
575 Are women now, and menials old."

XXIX

The mistress of the mansion came,
Mature of age, a graceful dame;
Whose easy step and stately port
Had well become a princely court,
580 To whom, though more than kindred knew,note
Young Ellen gave a mother's due.
Meet welcome to her guest she made,
And every courteous rite was paid,
That hospitality could claim,
585 Though all unasked his birth and name.
Such then the reverence to a guest,
That fellest foe might join the feast,
And from his deadliest foeman's door
Unquestioned turn, the banquet o'er.
590 [Pg 82] At length his rank the stranger names,
"The Knight of Snowdoun, James Fitz-James;note
Lord of a barren heritage,
Which his brave sires, from age to age,
By their good swords had held with toil;
595 His sire had fallen in such turmoil,
And he, God wot, was forced to stand
Oft for his right with blade in hand.
This morning, with Lord Moray's train
He chased a stalwart stag in vain,
600 Outstripped his comrades, missed the deer,
Lost his good steed, and wandered here."

XXX

Fain would the Knight in turn require
The name and state of Ellen's sire.
Well showed the elder lady's mien,
605 That courts and cities she had seen;
Ellen, though more her looks displayed
The simple grace of silvan maid,
In speech and gesture, form and face,
Showed she was come of gentle race.
610 'Twere strange in ruder rank to find
Such looks, such manners, and such mind.
Each hint the Knight of Snowdoun gave,
Dame Margaret heard with silence grave;
Or Ellen, innocently gay,
615 Turned all inquiry light away:
[Pg 83] "Weird women we—by dale and down
We dwell, afar from tower and town.
We stem the flood, we ride the blast,
On wandering knights our spells we cast;
620 While viewless minstrels touch the string,
'Tis thus our charméd rimes we sing."
She sung, and still a harp unseennote
Filled up the symphony between.

XXXI

SONG

"Soldier, rest! thy warfare o'er,
625 Sleep the sleep that knows no breaking;
Dream of battled fields no more,
Days of danger, nights of waking.
In our isle's enchanted hall,
Hands unseen thy couch are strewing,
630 Fairy strains of music fall,
Every sense in slumber dewing.
Soldier, rest! thy warfare o'er,
Dream of fighting fields no more;
Sleep the sleep that knows not breaking,
635 Morn of toil, nor night of waking.

"No rude sound shall reach thine ear,
Armor's clang, or war-steed champing,
Trump nor pibroch summon herenote
Mustering clan, or squadron tramping.
640 [Pg 84] Yet the lark's shrill fife may come
At the day-break from the fallow,
And the bittern sound his drum,note
Booming from the sedgy shallow.
Ruder sounds shall none be near,
645 Guards nor warders challenge here,
Here's no war-steed's neigh and champing,
Shouting clans or squadrons stamping."

XXXII

She paused—then, blushing, led the lay
To grace the stranger of the day.
650 Her mellow notes awhile prolong
The cadence of the flowing song,
Till to her lips in measured frame
The minstrel verse spontaneous came.

SONG—(Continued)

"Huntsman, rest! thy chase is done,
655 While our slumbrous spells assail ye,
Dream not, with the rising sun,
Bugles here shall sound reveillé.note
Sleep! the deer is in his den;
Sleep! thy hounds are by thee lying;
660 Sleep! nor dream in yonder glen,
How thy gallant steed lay dying.
Huntsman, rest! thy chase is done,
Think not of the rising sun,
[Pg 85] For at dawning to assail ye,
665 Here no bugles sound reveillé."

XXXIII

The hall was cleared—the stranger's bed
Was there of mountain heather spread,
Where oft a hundred guests had lain,
And dreamed their forest sports again.
670 But vainly did the heath-flower shed
Its moorland fragrance round his head;
Not Ellen's spell had lulled to rest
The fever of his troubled breast.
In broken dreams the image rose
675 Of varied perils, pains, and woes:
His steed now flounders in the brake,
Now sinks his barge upon the lake;
Now leader of a broken host,
His standard falls, his honor's lost.
680 Then—from my couch may heavenly might
Chase that worst phantom of the night!
Again returned the scenes of youth,
Of confident undoubting truth;
Again his soul he interchanged
685 With friends whose hearts were long estranged.
They come, in dim procession led,
The cold, the faithless, and the dead;
As warm each hand, each brow as gay,
As if they parted yesterday.
690 And doubt distracts him at the view—
O were his senses false or true?
[Pg 86] Dreamed he of death, or broken vow,
Or is it all a vision now?

XXXIV

At length, with Ellen in a grove
695 He seemed to walk, and speak of love;
She listened with a blush and sigh,
His suit was warm, his hopes were high.
He sought her yielded hand to clasp,
And a cold gauntlet met his grasp;
700 The phantom's sex was changed and gone,
Upon its head a helmet shone;
Slowly enlarged to giant size,
With darkened cheek and threatening eyes,
The grisly visage, stern and hoar,
705 To Ellen still a likeness bore.
He woke, and, panting with affright,
Recalled the vision of the night.
The hearth's decaying brands were red.
And deep and dusky luster shed,
710 Half showing, half concealing, all
The uncouth trophies of the hall.
Mid those the stranger fixed his eye,
Where that huge falchion hung on high,
And thoughts on thoughts, a countless throng,
715 Rushed, chasing countless thoughts along.
Until, the giddy whirl to cure,
He rose, and sought the moonshine pure.

[Pg 87] XXXV

The wild-rose, eglantine, and broom,
Wasted around their rich perfume:
720 The birch-trees swept in fragrant balm,
The aspens slept beneath the calm;
The silver light, with quivering glance,
Played on the water's still expanse—
Wild were the heart whose passion's sway
725 Could rage beneath the sober ray!
He felt its calm, that warrior guest,
While thus he communed with his breast:
"Why is it, at each turn I trace
Some memory of that exiled race?
730 Can I not mountain-maiden spy,
But she must bear the Douglas eye?
Can I not view a Highland brand,
But it must match the Douglas hand?
Can I not frame a fevered dream,
735 But still the Douglas is the theme?
I'll dream no more—by manly mind
Not even in sleep is will resigned.
My midnight orisons said o'er,
I'll turn to rest, and dream no more."
740 His midnight orisons he told,
A prayer with every bead of gold,
Consigned to heaven his cares and woes,
And sunk in undisturbed repose,
Until the heath-cock shrilly crew,
745 And morning dawned on Benvenue.

[Pg 88] CANTO SECOND

THE ISLAND

At morn the blackcock trims his jetty wing,note
'Tis morning prompts the linnet's blithest lay,
All Nature's children feel the matin spring
Of life reviving, with reviving day;
5 And while yon little bark glides down the bay,
Wafting the stranger on his way again,
Morn's genial influence roused a minstrel gray,note
And sweetly o'er the lake was heard thy strain,
Mixed with the sounding harp, O white-haired Allan-bane!

II

SONG

10 "Not faster yonder rowers' might
Flings from their oars the spray,
Not faster yonder rippling bright,
That tracks the shallop's course in light,
Melts in the lake away,
15 Than men from memory erase
The benefits of former days;
[Pg 89] Then, stranger, go! good speed the while,
Nor think again of the lonely isle.

"High place to thee in royal court,
20 High place in battle line,
Good hawk and hound for silvan sport,
Where beauty sees the brave resort;
The honored meed be thine!
True be thy sword, thy friend sincere,
25 Thy lady constant, kind and dear,
And lost in love, and friendship's smile
Be memory of the lonely isle.

III

SONG (Continued)

"But if beneath yon southern sky
A plaided stranger roam
30 Whose drooping crest and stifled sigh,
And sunken cheek and heavy eye,
Pine for his Highland home;
Then, warrior, then be thine to show
The care that soothes a wanderer's woe;
35 Remember then thy hap ere while,
A stranger in the lonely isle.

"Or if on life's uncertain main
Mishap shall mar thy sail;
If faithful, wise, and brave in vain,
40 Woe, want, and exile thou sustain
Beneath the fickle gale;
[Pg 90] Waste not a sigh on fortune changed,
On thankless courts, or friends estranged,
But come where kindred worth shall smile,
45 To greet thee in the lonely isle."

As died the sounds upon the tide,
The shallop reached the mainland side,
And ere his onward way he took,
The stranger cast a lingering look,
50 Where easily his eye might reach
The Harper on the islet beach,
Reclined against a blighted tree,
As wasted, gray, and worn as he.
To minstrel meditation given,
55 His reverend brow was raised to heaven,
As from the rising sun to claim
A sparkle of inspiring flame.
His hand, reclined upon the wire,
Seemed watching the awakening fire;
60 So still he sat, as those who wait
Till judgment speak the doom of fate;
So still, as if no breeze might dare
To lift one lock of hoary hair;
So still, as life itself were fled,
65 In the last sound his harp had sped.

Upon a rock with lichens wild,
Beside him Ellen sat and smiled—
[Pg 91] Smiled she to see the stately drake
Lead forth his fleet upon the lake,note
70 While her vexed spaniel, from the beach
Bayed at the prize beyond his reach?
Yet tell me, then, the maid who knows,
Why deepened on her cheek the rose?
Forgive, forgive, Fidelity!
75 Perchance the maiden smiled to see
Yon parting lingerer wave adieu,
And stop and turn to wave anew;
And, lovely ladies, ere your ire
Condemn the heroine of my lyre,
80 Show me the fair would scorn to spy,
And prize such conquest of her eye!

While yet he loitered on the spot,
It seemed as Ellen marked him not;
But when he turned him to the glade,
85 One courteous parting sign she made;
And after, oft the knight would say,
That not when prize of festal day
Was dealt him by the brightest fair,
Who e'er wore jewel in her hair,
90 So highly did his bosom swell,
As at that simple mute farewell.
Now with a trusty mountain-guide,
And his dark stag-hounds by his side,
[Pg 92] He parts—the maid, unconscious still,
95 Watched him wind slowly round the hill;
But when his stately form was hid,
The guardian in her bosom chid—
"Thy Malcolm! vain and selfish maid!"
'Twas thus upbraiding conscience said—
100 "Not so had Malcolm idly hung
On the smooth phrase of southern tongue;
Not so had Malcolm strained his eye
Another step than thine to spy.
Wake, Allan-bane," aloud she cried,
105 To the old Minstrel by her side—
"Arouse thee from thy moody dream!
I'll give thy harp heroic theme,
And warm thee with a noble name;
Pour forth the glory of the Graeme!"
110 Scarce from her lip the word had rushed,
When deep the conscious maiden blushed;
For of his clan, in hall and bower,
Young Malcolm Graeme was held the flower.

VII

The Minstrel waked his harp—three times
115 Arose the well-known martial chimes,
And thrice their high heroic pride
In melancholy murmurs died.
"Vainly thou bid'st, O noble maid,"
Clasping his withered hands, he said,
120 [Pg 93] "Vainly thou bid'st me wake the strain,
Though all unwont to bid in vain.
Alas! than mine a mightier hand
Has tuned my harp, my strings has spanned!
I touch the chords of joy, but low
125 And mournful answer notes of woe;
And the proud march, which victors tread,
Sinks in the wailing for the dead.
O well for me, if mine alone
That dirge's deep prophetic tone!
130 If, as my tuneful fathers said,
This harp, which erst Saint Modan swayed,note
Can thus its master's fate foretell,
Then welcome be the minstrel's knell!

VIII

"But ah! dear lady, thus it sighed
135 The eve thy sainted mother died;
And such the sounds which, while I strove
To wake a lay of war or love,
Came marring all the festal mirth,
Appalling me who gave them birth,
140 And, disobedient to my call,
Wailed loud through Bothwell's bannered hall,note
Ere Douglases to ruin driven,
Were exiled from their native heaven.
Oh! if yet worse mishap and woe,
145 My master's house must undergo,
[Pg 94] Or aught but weal to Ellen fair,
Brood in these accents of despair,
No future bard, sad Harp! shall fling
Triumph or rapture from thy string;
150 One short, one final strain shall flow,
Fraught with unutterable woe,
Then shivered shall thy fragments lie,
Thy master cast him down and die!"

Soothing she answered him—"Assuage,
155 Mine honored friend, the fears of age;
All melodies to thee are known,
That harp has rung, or pipe has blown,
In Lowland vale or Highland glen,
From Tweed to Spey—what marvel, then,note
160 At times, unbidden notes should rise,
Confusedly bound in memory's ties,
Entangling, as they rush along,
The war-march with the funeral song?
Small ground is now for boding fear;
165 Obscure, but safe, we rest us here.
My sire, in native virtue great,
Resigning lordship, lands, and state,
Not then to fortune more resigned,
Than yonder oak might give the wind;
170 The graceful foliage storms may reave,
The noble stem they cannot grieve.
[Pg 95] For me,"—she stooped, and, looking round,
Plucked a blue hare-bell from the ground—
"For me, whose memory scarce conveys
175 An image of more splendid days,
This little flower, that loves the lea,
May well my simple emblem be;
It drinks heaven's dew as blithe as rose
That in the king's own garden grows;
180 And when I place it in my hair,
Allan, a bard is bound to swear
He ne'er saw coronet so fair."
Then playfully the chaplet wild
She wreathed in her dark locks, and smiled.

185 Her smile, her speech, with winning sway,
Wiled the old harper's mood away.
With such a look as hermits throw,
When angels stoop to soothe their woe,
He gazed, till fond regret and pride
190 Thrilled to a tear, then thus replied:
"Loveliest and best! thou little know'st
The rank, the honors, thou hast lost!
O might I live to see thee grace,
In Scotland's court, thy birth-right place,
195 To see my favorite's step advance,
The lightest in the courtly dance,
The cause of every gallant's sigh,
And leading star of every eye,
[Pg 96] And theme of every minstrel's art,
200 The Lady of the Bleeding Heart!"note

"Fair dreams are these," the maiden cried
—Light was her accent, yet she sighed—
"Yet is this mossy rock to me
Worth splendid chair and canopy;
205 Nor would my footsteps spring more gay
In courtly dance than blithe strathspey,note
Nor half so pleased mine ear incline
To royal minstrel's lay as thine.
And then for suitors proud and high,
210 To bend before my conquering eye—
Thou, flattering bard! thyself wilt say,
That grim Sir Roderick owns its sway.
The Saxon scourge, Clan-Alpine's pride,note
The terror of Loch-Lomond's side,
215 Would, at my suit, thou know'st, delay
A Lennox foray—for a day."note

XII

The ancient bard his glee repressed:
"Ill hast thou chosen theme for jest!
For who, through all this western wild,
220 Named Black Sir Roderick e'er, and smiled!
In Holy-Rood a knight he slew;note
I saw, when back the dirk he drew,
Courtiers give place before the stride
Of the undaunted homicide;
225 [Pg 97] And since, though outlawed, hath his hand
Full sternly kept his mountain land.
Who else dared give—ah! woe the day,note
That I such hated truth should say—
The Douglas, like a stricken deer,
230 Disowned by every noble peer,
Even the rude refuge we have here?
Alas, this wild marauding Chief
Alone might hazard our relief,
And now thy maiden charms expand,
235 Looks for his guerdon in thy hand;
Full soon may dispensation sought,note
To back his suit, from Rome he brought.
Then, though an exile on the hill,
Thy father, as the Douglas, still
240 Be held in reverence and fear;
And though to Roderick thou'rt so dear,
That thou might'st guide with silken thread,
Slave of thy will, this chieftain dread;
Yet, O loved maid, thy mirth refrain!
245 Thy hand is on a lion's mane."

XIII

"Minstrel," the maid replied, and high
Her father's soul glanced from her eye,
"My debts to Roderick's house I know:
All that a mother could bestow,note
250 To Lady Margaret's care I owe,
Since first an orphan in the wild
[Pg 98] She sorrowed o'er her sister's child;
To her brave chieftain son, from ire
Of Scotland's king who shrouds my sire.
255 A deeper, holier debt is owed;
And, could I pay it with my blood,
Allan! Sir Roderick should command
My blood, my life—but not my hand.
Rather will Ellen Douglas dwell
260 A votaress in Maronnan's cell;note
Rather through realms beyond the sea,
Seeking the world's cold charity,
Where ne'er was spoke a Scottish word,
And ne'er the name of Douglas heard,
265 An outcast pilgrim will she rove,
Than wed the man she cannot love.

XIV

"Thou shakest, good friend, thy tresses gray—
That pleading look, what can it say
But what I own?—I grant him brave,
270 But wild as Bracklinn's thundering wave;note
And generous—save vindictive mood,
Or jealous transport, chafe his blood;
I grant him true to friendly band,
As his claymore is to his hand;note
275 But O! that very blade of steel
More mercy for a foe would feel:
I grant him liberal, to fling
Among his clan the wealth they bring,
[Pg 99] When back by lake and glen they wind,
280 And in the Lowland leave behind,
Where once some pleasant hamlet stood,
A mass of ashes slaked with blood.
The hand that for my father fought,
I honor, as his daughter ought;
285 But can I clasp it reeking red,
From peasants slaughtered in their shed?
No! wildly while his virtues gleam,
They make his passions darker seem,
And flash along his spirit high,
290 Like lightning o'er the midnight sky.
While yet a child—and children know,
Instinctive taught, the friend and foe—
I shuddered at his brow of gloom,
His shadowy plaid, and sable plume;
295 A maiden grown, I ill could bear
His haughty mien and lordly air;
But, if thou join'st a suitor's claim,
In serious mood, to Roderick's name,
I thrill with anguish! or, if e'er
300 A Douglas knew the word, with fear.
To change such odious theme were best—
What think'st thou of our stranger guest?"

"What think I of him?—woe the while
That brought such wanderer to our isle!
305 Thy father's battle-brand, of yorenote
For Tine-man forged by fairy lore.
[Pg 100] What time he leagued, no longer foes,
His Border spears with Hotspur's bows,
Did, self-unscabbarded, foreshow
310 The footstep of a secret foe.
If courtly spy hath harbored here,
What may we for the Douglas fear?
What for this island, deemed of old
Clan-Alpine's last and surest hold?
315 If neither spy nor foe, I pray
What yet may jealous Roderick say?
—Nay, wave not thy disdainful head,
Bethink thee of the discord dread,
That kindled when at Beltane gamenote
320 Thou ledst the dance with Malcolm Graeme;
Still, though thy sire the peace renewed,
Smolders in Roderick's breast the feud;
Beware!—But hark, what sounds are these?
My dull ears catch no faltering breeze,
325 No weeping birch, nor aspens wake,
Nor breath is dimpling in the lake,
Still is the canna's hoary beard,note
Yet, by my minstrel faith, I heard—
And hark again! some pipe of war
330 Sends the bold pibroch from afar."

XVI

Far up the lengthened lake were spiednote
Four darkening specks upon the tide,
That, slow enlarging on the view,
Four manned and masted barges grew,note
335 [Pg 101] And, bearing downwards from Glengyle,note
Steered full upon the lonely isle;
The point of Brianchoil they passed,
And, to the windward as they cast,
Against the sun they gave to shine
340 The bold Sir Roderick's bannered Pine.
Nearer and nearer as they bear,
Spears, pikes, and axes flash in air.
Now might you see the tartans brave,note
And plaids and plumage dance and wave;
345 Now see the bonnets sink and rise,
As his tough oar the rower plies;
See, flashing at each sturdy stroke,
The wave ascending into smoke;
See the proud pipers on the bow,
350 And mark the gaudy streamers flow
From their loud chanters down, and sweep
The furrowed bosom of the deep,
As, rushing through the lake amain,
They plied the ancient Highland strain.

XVII

355 Ever, as on they bore, more loud
And louder rung the pibroch proud.
At first the sound, by distance tame,
Mellowed along the waters came,
And, lingering long by cape and bay,
360 Wailed every harsher note away,
[Pg 102] Then bursting bolder on the ear,
The clan's shrill Gathering they could hear;
Those thrilling sounds, that call the might
Of Old Clan-Alpine to the fight.
365 Thick beat the rapid notes, as when
The mustering hundreds shake the glen,
And hurrying at the signal dread,
The battered earth returns their tread.
Then prelude light, of livelier tone,
370 Expressed their merry marching on,
Ere peal of closing battle rose,
With mingled outcry, shrieks, and blows;
And mimic din of stroke and ward,
As broad sword upon target jarred;
375 And groaning pause, ere yet again,
Condensed, the battle yelled amain;
The rapid charge, the rallying shout,
Retreat borne headlong into rout,
And bursts of triumph, to declare
380 Clan-Alpine's conquest—all were there.
Nor ended thus the strain; but slow
Sunk in a moan prolonged and low,
And changed the conquering clarion swell,
For wild lament o'er those that fell.

XVIII

385 The war-pipes ceased; but lake and hill
Were busy with their echoes still;
And, when they slept, a vocal strain
Bade their hoarse chorus wake again,
[Pg 103] While loud a hundred clansmen raise
390 Their voices in their Chieftain's praise.
Each boatman, bending to his oar,
With measured sweep the burden bore,
In such wild cadence, as the breeze
Makes through December's leafless trees.
395 The chorus first could Allan know,note
"Roderick Vich Alpine, ho! iro!"
And near, and nearer as they rowed,
Distinct the martial ditty flowed.

XIX

BOAT SONG

Hail to the Chief who in triumph advances!
400 Honored and blessed be the ever-green Pine!
Long may the tree, in his banner that glances,
Flourish, the shelter and grace of our line!
Heaven send it happy dew,
Earth lend it sap anew,
405 Gayly to borgeon, and broadly to grow,
While every Highland glen
Sends our shout back again,
"Roderigh Vich Alpine dhu, ho! ieroe!"note

Ours is no sapling, chance-sown by the fountain,
410 Blooming at Beltane, in winter to fade;note
When the whirlwind has stripped every leaf on the mountain,
The more shall Clan-Alpine exult in her shade.
[Pg 104] Moored in the rifted rock,
Proof to the tempest's shock,
415 Firmer he roots him the ruder it blow;
Menteith and Breadalbane, then,note
Echo his praise again,
"Roderigh Vich Alpine dhu, ho! ieroe!"

Proudly our pibroch has thrilled in Glen Fruin,note
420 And Bannochar's groans to our slogan replied;
Glen Luss and Ross-dhu, they are smoking in ruin,
And the best of Loch-Lomond lie dead on her side.
Widow and Saxon maid
Long shall lament our raid,
425 Think of Clan-Alpine with fear and with woe;
Lennox and Leven-glen
Shake when they hear again
"Roderigh Vich Alpine dhu, ho! ieroe!"

Row, vassals, row, for the pride of the highlands!
430 Stretch to your oars, for the ever-green Pine!
O that the rose-bud that graces yon islands,note
Were wreathed in a garland around him to twine!
O that some seedling gem,
Worthy such noble stem,
435 Honored and blest in their shadow might grow;
[Pg 105] Loud should Clan-Alpine then
Ring from her deepmost glen,
"Roderigh Vich Alpine dhu, ho! ieroe!"

XXI

With all her joyful female band,
440 Had Lady Margaret sought the strand.
Loose on the breeze their tresses flew,
And high their snowy arms they threw,
As echoing back with shrill acclaim,
And chorus wild, the Chieftain's name;
445 While, prompt to please, with mother's art,
The darling passion of his heart,
The Dame called Ellen to the strand,
To greet her kinsman ere he land:
"Come, loiterer, come! a Douglas thou,
450 And shun to wreathe a victor's brow?"
Reluctantly and slow, the maid
The unwelcome summoning obeyed,
And, when a distant bugle rung,
In the mid-path aside she sprung:
455 "List Allan-bane! From mainland cast
I hear my father's signal blast.
Be ours," she cried, "the skiff to guide,
And waft him from the mountain side."
Then, like a sunbeam, swift and bright,
460 She darted to her shallop light,
And, eagerly while Roderick scanned,
For her dear form, his mother's band,
[Pg 106] The islet far behind her lay,
And she had landed in the bay.

XXII

465 Some feelings are to mortals given,
With less of earth in them than heaven:
And if there be a human tear
From passion's dross refined and clear,
A tear so limpid and so meek,
470 It would not stain an angel's cheek,
'Tis that which pious fathers shed
Upon a duteous daughter's head!
And as the Douglas to his breast
His darling Ellen closely pressed,
475 Such holy drops her tresses steeped,
Though 'twas an hero's eye that weeped.
Nor while on Ellen's faltering tongue
Her filial welcomes crowded hung,
Marked she, that fear, affection's proof,
480 Still held a graceful youth aloof;
No! not till Douglas named his name,
Although the youth was Malcolm Graeme.

XXIII

Allan, with wistful look the while,
Marked Roderick landing on the isle;
485 His master piteously he eyed.
Then gazed upon the Chieftain's pride,
Then dashed, with hasty hand, away
From his dimmed eye the gathering spray;
[Pg 107] And Douglas, as his hand he laid
490 On Malcolm's shoulder, kindly said,
"Canst thou, young friend, no meaning spy
In my poor follower's glistening eye?
I'll tell thee: he recalls the day,
When in my praise he led the lay
495 O'er the arched gate of Bothwell proud,
While many a minstrel answered loud,
When Percy's Norman pennon, wonnote
In bloody field, before me shone,
And twice ten knights, the least a name
500 As mighty as yon Chief may claim,
Gracing my pomp, behind me came.
Yet trust me, Malcolm, not so proud
Was I of all that marshaled crowd,
Though the waned crescent owned my might,note
505 And in my train trooped lord and knight,
Though Blantyre hymned her holiest lays,note
And Bothwell's bards flung back my praise,
As when this old man's silent tear,
And this poor maid's affection dear,
510 A welcome give more kind and true,
Than aught my better fortunes knew.
Forgive, my friend, a father's boast,
Oh! it out-beggars all I lost!"

XXIV

Delightful praise!—like summer rose,
515 That brighter in the dew-drop glows,
[Pg 108] The bashful maiden's cheek appeared,
For Douglas spoke and Malcolm heard.
The flush of shame-faced joy to hide,
The hounds, the hawk, her cares divide;
520 The loved caresses of the maid
The dogs with crouch and whimper paid;
And, at her whistle, on her hand
The falcon took his favorite stand,
Closed his dark wing, relaxed his eye,
525 Nor, though unhooded, sought to fly.
And, trust, while in such guise she stood,
Like fabled Goddess of the wood,
That if a father's partial thought
O'erweighed her worth, and beauty aught,
530 Well might the lover's judgment fail
To balance with a juster scale;
For with each secret glance he stole,
The fond enthusiast sent his soul.

XXV

Of stature tall, and slender frame,
535 But firmly knit, was Malcolm Graeme.
The belted plaid and tartan hose
Did ne'er more graceful limbs disclose;
His flaxen hair, of sunny hue,
Curled closely round his bonnet blue.
540 Trained to the chase, his eagle eye
The ptarmigan in snow could spy;
[Pg 109] Each pass, by mountain, lake, and heath,
He knew, through Lennox and Menteith;
Vain was the bound of dark-brown doe,
545 When Malcolm bent his sounding bow,
And scarce that doe, though winged with fear,
Outstripped in speed the mountaineer;
Right up Ben-Lomond could he press,
And not a sob his toil confess.
550 His form accorded with a mind
Lively and ardent, frank and kind;
A blither heart, till Ellen came,
Did never love nor sorrow tame;
It danced as lightsome in his breast,
555 As played the feather on his crest.
Yet friends, who nearest knew the youth,
His scorn of wrong, his zeal for truth,
And bards, who saw his features bold,
When kindled by the tales of old,
560 Said, were that youth to manhood grown,
Not long should Roderick Dhu's renown
Be foremost voiced by mountain fame,
But quail to that of Malcolm Graeme.

XXVI

Now back they wend their watery way,
565 And, "O my sire!" did Ellen say,
"Why urge thy chase so far astray?
And why so late returned? And why"—
The rest was in her speaking eye.
[Pg 110] "My child, the chase I follow far,
570 'Tis mimicry of noble war;
And with that gallant pastime reft
Were all of Douglas I have left.
I met young Malcolm as I strayed
Far eastward, in Glenfinlas' shade,note
575 Nor strayed I safe; for all around,
Hunters and horsemen scoured the ground.
This youth, though still a royal ward,note
Risked life and land to be my guard,
And through the passes of the wood
580 Guided my steps, not unpursued;
And Roderick shall his welcome make,
Despite old spleen, for Douglas' sake.
Then must he seek Strath-Endrick glen,note
Nor peril aught for me again."

XXVII

585 Sir Roderick, who to meet them came,
Reddened at sight of Malcolm Graeme,
Yet, not in action, word, or eye,
Failed aught in hospitality.
In talk and sport they whiled away
590 The morning of that summer day;
But at high noon a courier light
Held secret parley with the knight,
Whose moody aspect soon declared,
That evil were the news he heard.
595 Deep thought seemed toiling in his head;
[Pg 111] Yet was the evening banquet made,
Ere he assembled round the flame,
His mother, Douglas, and the Graeme,
And Ellen too; then cast around
600 His eyes, then fixed them on the ground,
As studying phrase that might avail
Best to convey unpleasant tale.
Long with his dagger's hilt he played,
Then raised his haughty brow, and said:

XXVIII

605 "Short be my speech—nor time affords,
Nor my plain temper, glozing words.
Kinsman and father—if such name
Douglas vouchsafe to Roderick's claim;
Mine honored mother—Ellen—why,
610 My cousin, turn away thine eye?—
And Graeme, in whom I hope to know
Full soon a noble friend or foe,
When age shall give thee thy command,
And leading in thy native land—
615 List all—The King's vindictive pride
Boasts to have tamed the Border-side,
Where chiefs, with hound and hawk who came
To share their monarch's silvan game,
Themselves in bloody toils were snared;
620 And when the banquet they prepared,
And wide their loyal portals flung,
O'er their own gateway struggling hung.
[Pg 112] Loud cries their blood from Meggat's mead,note
From Yarrow braes, and banks of Tweed,
625 Where the lone streams of Ettrick glide,
And from the silver Teviot's side;
The dales, where martial clans did ride,
Are now one sheep-walk, waste and wide.
This tyrant of the Scottish throne,
630 So faithless, and so ruthless known,
Now hither comes; his end the same,
The same pretext of silvan game.
What grace for Highland Chiefs, judge ye
By fate of Border chivalry.
635 Yet more; amid Glenfinlas' green,
Douglas, thy stately form was seen.
This by espial sure I know:
Your counsel in the strait I show."

XXIX

Ellen and Margaret fearfully
640 Sought comfort in each other's eye,
Then turned their ghastly look, each one,
This to her sire, that to her son.
The hasty color went and came
In the bold cheek of Malcolm Graeme;
645 But from his glance it well appeared,
'Twas but for Ellen that he feared;
While, sorrowful, but undismayed,
The Douglas thus his counsel said:
[Pg 113] "Brave Roderick, though the tempest roar,
650 It may but thunder and pass o'er;
Nor will I here remain an hour,
To draw the lightning on thy bower;
For well thou know'st, at this gray head
The royal bolt were fiercest sped.
655 For thee, who, at thy King's command,
Canst aid him with a gallant band,
Submission, homage, humbled pride,
Shall turn the Monarch's wrath aside.
Poor remnants of the Bleeding Heart,
660 Ellen and I will seek, apart,
The refuge of some forest cell,
There, like the hunted quarry, dwell,
Till on the mountain and the moor,
The stern pursuit be passed and o'er."

XXX

665 "No, by mine honor," Roderick said,
"So help me Heaven, and my good blade!
No, never! Blasted be yon Pine,
My fathers' ancient crest and mine,
If from its shade in danger part
670 The lineage of the Bleeding Heart!
Hear my blunt speech: Grant me this maid
To wife, thy counsel to mine aid;
To Douglas, leagued with Roderick Dhu,
Will friends and allies flock enow;
675 [Pg 114] Like cause of doubt, distrust, and grief
Will bind to us each Western Chief.
When the loud pipes my bridal tell,
The Links of Forth shall hear the knell,note
The guards shall start in Stirling's porch;
680 And, when I light the nuptial torch,
A thousand villages in flames
Shall scare the slumbers of King James!
—Nay, Ellen, blench not thus away,
And, mother, cease these signs, I pray;
685 I meant not all my heat might say.
Small need of inroad, or of fight,
When the sage Douglas may unite
Each mountain clan in friendly band,
To guard the passes of their land,
690 Till the foiled king, from pathless glen,
Shall bootless turn him home again."

XXXI

There are who have, at midnight hour,note
In slumber scaled a dizzy tower,
And, on the verge that beetled o'er
695 The ocean tide's incessant roar,
Dreamed calmly out their dangerous dream,
Till wakened by the morning beam;
When, dazzled by the eastern glow,
Such startler cast his glance below,
700 And saw unmeasured depth around,
And heard unintermitted sound,
[Pg 115] And thought the battled fence so frail,
It waved like cobweb in the gale;
Amid his senses' giddy wheel,
705 Did he not desperate impulse feel,
Headlong to plunge himself below,
And meet the worst his fears foreshow?
Thus, Ellen, dizzy and astound,
As sudden ruin yawned around,
710 By crossing terrors wildly tossed,
Still for the Douglas fearing most,
Could scarce the desperate thought withstand,
To buy his safety with her hand.

XXXII

Such purpose dread could Malcolm spy
715 In Ellen's quivering lip and eye,
And eager rose to speak—but ere
His tongue could hurry forth his fear,
Had Douglas marked the hectic strife,
Where death seemed combating with life;
720 For to her cheek, in feverish flood,
One instant rushed the throbbing blood,
Then ebbing back, with sudden sway,
Left its domain as wan as clay.
"Roderick, enough! enough!" he cried,
725 "My daughter cannot be thy bride;
Not that the blush to wooer dear,
Nor paleness that of maiden fear.
[Pg 116] It may not be—forgive her, Chief,
Nor hazard aught for our relief.
730 Against his sovereign, Douglas ne'er
Will level a rebellious spear.
'Twas I that taught his youthful hand
To rein a steed and wield a brand;
I see him yet, the princely boy!
735 Not Ellen more my pride and joy;
I love him still, despite my wrongs,
By hasty wrath, and slanderous tongues.
O seek the grace you well may find,
Without a cause to mine combined."

XXXIII

740 Twice through the hall the Chieftain strode;
The waving of his tartans broad,
And darkened brow, where wounded pride
With ire and disappointment vied,
Seemed, by the torch's gloomy light,
745 Like the ill Demon of the night,
Stooping his pinions' shadowy sway
Upon the knighted pilgrim's way.
But, unrequited Love! thy dart
Plunged deepest its envenomed smart,
750 And Roderick, with thine anguish stung,
At length the hand of Douglas wrung,
While eyes, that mocked at tears before,
With bitter drops were running o'er.
[Pg 117] The death-pangs of long-cherished hope
755 Scarce in that ample breast had scope,
But, struggling with his spirit proud,
Convulsive heaved its checkered shroud,
While every sob—so mute were all—
Was heard distinctly through the hall.
760 The son's despair, the mother's look,
Ill might the gentle Ellen brook;
She rose, and to her side there came,
To aid her parting steps, the Graeme.

XXXIV

Then Roderick from the Douglas broke—
765 As flashes flame through sable smoke,
Kindling its wreaths, long, dark, and low,
To one broad blaze of ruddy glow,
So the deep anguish of despair
Burst, in fierce jealousy, to air.
770 With stalwart grasp his hand he laid
On Malcolm's breast and belted plaid:
"Back, beardless boy!" he sternly said,
"Back, minion! hold'st thou thus at naught
The lesson I so lately taught?
775 This roof, the Douglas, and that maid,
Thank thou for punishment delayed."
Eager as a greyhound on his game
Fiercely with Roderick grappled Graeme.
"Perish my name, if aught afford
780 Its Chieftain's safety save his sword!"
[Pg 118] Thus as they strove, their desperate hand
Griped to the dagger or the brand,
And death had been—but Douglas rose,
And thrust between the struggling foes
785 His giant strength: "Chieftains, forego!
I hold the first who strikes, my foe.
Madmen, forbear your frantic jar!
What! is the Douglas fallen so far,
His daughter's hand is deemed the spoil
790 Of such dishonorable broil!"
Sullen and slowly they unclasp,
As struck with shame, their desperate grasp,
And each upon his rival glared,
With foot advanced, and blade half bared.

XXXV

795 Ere yet the brands aloft were flung
Margaret on Roderick's mantle hung,
And Malcolm heard his Ellen's scream,
As faltered through terrific dream.
Then Roderick plunged in sheath his sword
800 And veiled his wrath in scornful word:
"Rest safe till morning; pity 'twerenote
Such cheek should feel the midnight air!
Then mayest thou to James Stuart tell,
Roderick will keep the lake and fell,
805 Nor lackey, with his freeborn clan,
The pageant pomp of earthly man.
[Pg 119] More would he of Clan-Alpine know,
Thou canst our strength and passes show.
Malise, what ho!"—his henchman came;note
810 "Give our safe-conduct to the Graeme."
Young Malcolm answered, calm and bold,
"Fear nothing for thy favorite hold;
The spot, an angel deigned to grace,
Is blessed, though robbers haunt the place.
815 Thy churlish courtesy for those
Reserve, who fear to be thy foes.
As safe to me the mountain way
At midnight as in blaze of day,
Though with his boldest at his back
820 Even Roderick Dhu beset the track.—
Brave Douglas—lovely Ellen—nay,
Nought here of parting will I say.
Earth does not hold a lonesome glen
So secret but we meet again.—
825 Chieftain! we too shall find an hour,"
He said, and left the silvan bower.

XXXVI

Old Allan followed to the strand—
Such was the Douglas's command—
And anxious told, how, on the morn,
830 The stern Sir Roderick deep had sworn
The Fiery Cross should circle o'ernote
Dale, glen, and valley, down, and moor.
[Pg 120] Much were the peril to the Graeme
From those who to the signal came;
835 Far up the lake 'twere safest land,
Himself would row him to the strand.
He gave his counsel to the wind,
While Malcolm did, unheeding, bind,
Round dirk and pouch and broadsword rolled,
840 His ample plaid in tightened fold,
And stripped his limbs to such array,
As best might suit the watery way—

XXXVII

Then spoke abrupt: "Farewell to thee,
Pattern of old fidelity!"
845 The Minstrel's hand he kindly pressed—
"Oh, could I point a place of rest!
My sovereign holds in ward my land,
My uncle leads my vassal band;
To tame his foes, his friends to aid,
850 Poor Malcolm has but heart and blade.
Yet, if there be one faithful Graeme,
Who loves the chieftain of his name,
Not long shall honored Douglas dwell
Like hunted stag in mountain cell;
855 Nor, ere yon pride-swoll'n robber dare,
I might not give the rest to air!
Tell Roderick Dhu, I owed him nought,
Not the poor service of a boat,
[Pg 121] To waft me to yon mountain-side."
860 Then plunged he in the flashing tide.
Bold o'er the flood his head he bore,
And stoutly steered him from the shore;
And Allan strained his anxious eye,
Far mid the lake his form to spy,
865 Darkening across each puny wave,
To which the moon her silver gave,
Fast as the cormorant could skim,
The swimmer plied each active limb;
Then landing in the moonlight dell,
870 Loud shouted of his weal to tell.
The Minstrel heard the far halloo,
And joyful from the shore withdrew.

[Pg 122] CANTO THIRD

THE GATHERING

Time rolls his ceaseless course. The race of yore,
Who danced our infancy upon their knee,
And told our marveling boyhood legends store
Of their strange ventures happed by land or sea,
5 How are they blotted from the things that be!
How few, all weak and withered of their force,
Wait on the verge of dark eternity,
Like stranded wrecks, the tide returning hoarse,
To sweep them from our sight! Time rolls his ceaseless course.

10 Yet live there still who can remember well,
How, when a mountain chief his bugle blew,
Both field and forest, dingle, cliff, and dell,
And solitary heath, the signal knew;
And fast the faithful clan around him drew,
15 What time the warning note was keenly wound,
What time aloft their kindred banner flew,
While clamorous war-pipes yelled the gathering sound,
And while the Fiery Cross glanced, like a meteor, round.

[Pg 123] II

The summer dawn's reflected hue
20 To purple changed Loch Katrine blue;
Mildly and soft the western breeze
Just kissed the lake, just stirred the trees,
And the pleased lake, like maiden coy,
Trembled but dimpled not for joy;
25 The mountain-shadows on her breast
Were neither broken nor at rest;
In bright uncertainty they lie,
Like future joys to Fancy's eye.
The water-lily to the light
30 Her chalice reared of silver bright;
The doe awoke, and to the lawn,
Begemmed with dew-drops, led her fawn;
The gray mist left the mountain side,
The torrent showed its glistening pride;
35 Invisible in fleckéd sky,
The lark sent down her revelry;
The blackbird and the speckled thrush,
Good-morrow gave from brake and bush;
In answer cooed the cushat dovenote
40 Her notes of peace, and rest, and love.

III

No thought of peace, no thought of rest,
Assuaged the storm in Roderick's breast.
With sheathéd broadsword in his hand,
Abrupt he paced the islet strand,
45 [Pg 124] And eyed the rising sun, and laid
His hand on his impatient blade.
Beneath a rock, his vassals' care
Was prompt the ritual to prepare,
With deep and deathful meaning fraught;
50 For such Antiquity had taught
Was preface meet, ere yet abroad
The Cross of Fire should take its road.
The shrinking band stood oft aghast
At the impatient glance he cast—
55 Such glance the mountain eagle threw,
As, from the cliffs of Benvenue,
She spread her dark sails on the wind,
And, high in middle heaven reclined,
With her broad shadow on the lake,
60 Silenced the warblers of the brake.

A heap of withered boughs was piled,
Of juniper and rowan wild,
Mingled with shivers from the oak,note
Rent by the lightning's recent stroke.
65 Brian, the Hermit, by it stood,
Barefooted, in his frock and hood.
His grizzled beard and matted hair
Obscured a visage of despair;
His naked arms and legs, seamed o'er,
70 The scars of frantic penance bore.
That monk, of savage form and face,
The impending danger of his race
[Pg 125] Had drawn from deepest solitude,
Far in Benharrow's bosom rude.note
75 Not his the mien of Christian priest,
But Druid's, from the grave released,
Whose hardened heart and eye might brook
On human sacrifice to look;
And much, 'twas said, of heathen lore
80 Mixed in the charms he muttered o'er.
The hallowed creed gave only worse
And deadlier emphasis of curse;
No peasant sought that Hermit's prayer,
His cave the pilgrim shunned with care,
85 The eager huntsman knew his bound,
And in mid chase called off his hound;
Or if, in lonely glen or strath,note
The desert-dweller met his path,
He prayed, and signed the cross between,
90 While terror took devotion's mien.

Of Brian's birth strange tales were told.
His mother watched a midnight fold,
Built deep within a dreary glen,
Where scattered lay the bones of men
95 In some forgotten battle slain,
And bleached by drifting wind and rain.
It might have tamed a warrior's heart,
To view such mockery of his art!
The knot-grass fettered there the hand
100 Which once could burst an iron band;
[Pg 126] Beneath the broad and ample bone,
That bucklered heart to fear unknown,
A feeble and a timorous guest,
The fieldfare framed her lowly nest;note
105 There the slow blindworm left his slime
On the fleet limbs that mocked at time;
And there, too, lay the leader's skull,
Still wreathed with chaplet, flushed and full,
For heath-bell with her purple bloom
110 Supplied the bonnet and the plume.
All night, in this sad glen, the maid
Sat, shrouded in her mantle's shade:
She said no shepherd sought her side,
No hunter's hand her snood untied;
115 Yet ne'er again to braid her hair
The virgin snood did Alice wear;note
Gone was her maiden glee and sport,
Her maiden girdle all too short,
Nor sought she, from that fatal night,
120 Or holy church or blessed rite,
But locked her secret in her breast,
And died in travail, unconfessed.

Alone, among his young compeers,
Was Brian from his infant years;
125 A moody and heartbroken boy,
Estranged from sympathy and joy,
Bearing each taunt with careless tongue
On his mysterious lineage flung.
[Pg 127] Whole nights he spent by moonlight pale,
130 To wood and stream his hap to wail,
Till, frantic, he as truth received
What of his birth the crowd believed,
And sought, in mist and meteor fire,
To meet and know his Phantom Sire!
135 In vain, to soothe his wayward fate,
The cloister oped her pitying gate;
In vain, the learning of the age
Unclasped the sable-lettered page;
Even in its treasures he could find
140 Food for the fever of his mind.
Eager he read whatever tells
Of magic, cabala, and spells,
And every dark pursuit allied
To curious and presumptuous pride;
145 Till with fired brain and nerves o'erstrung,
And heart with mystic horrors wrung,
Desperate he sought Benharrow's den,
And hid him from the haunts of men.

VII

The desert gave him visions wild,
150 Such as might suit the specter's child.
Where with black cliffs the torrents toil,
He watched the wheeling eddies boil,
Till, from their foam, his dazzled eyes
Beheld the River Demon rise;note
155 The mountain mist took form and limb,
Of noontide hag, or goblin grim;note
[Pg 128] The midnight wind came wild and dread,
Swelled with the voices of the dead;
Far on the future battle-heath
160 His eyes beheld the ranks of death.
Thus the lone Seer, from mankind hurled,
Shaped forth a disembodied world.
One lingering sympathy of mind
Still bound him to the mortal kind;
165 The only parent he could claim
Of ancient Alpine lineage came.
Late had he heard, in prophet's dream,
The fatal Ben-Shie's boding scream;note
Sounds, too, had come in midnight blast,
170 Of charging steeds, careering fast
Along Benharrow's shingly side,
Where mortal horseman ne'er might ride;
The thunderbolt had split the pine—
All augured ill to Alpine's line.
175 He girt his loins, and came to show
The signals of impending woe,
And now stood prompt to bless or ban,
As bade the Chieftain of his clan.

VIII

'Twas all prepared—and from the rock,
180 A goat, the patriarch of the flock,
Before the kindling pile was laid,
And pierced by Roderick's ready blade.
[Pg 129] Patient the sickening victim eyed
The life-blood ebb in crimson tide,
185 Down his clogged beard and shaggy limb,
Till darkness glazed his eyeballs dim.
The grisly priest, with murmuring prayer,
A slender crosslet formed with care,
A cubit's length in measure due;
190 The shaft and limbs were rods of yew,
Whose parents in Inch-Cailliach wavenote
Their shadows o'er Clan-Alpine's grave,
And, answering Lomond's breezes deep,
Soothe many a chieftain's endless sleep.
195 The Cross, thus formed, he held on high,
With wasted hand and haggard eye,
And strange and mingled feelings woke;
While his anathema he spoke.

"Woe to the clansman, who shall viewnote
200 This symbol of sepulchral yew,
Forgetful that its branches grew
Where weep the heavens their holiest dew
On Alpine's dwelling low!
Deserter of his Chieftain's trust,
205 He ne'er shall mingle with their dust,
But, from his sires and kindred thrust,
Each clansman's execration just
Shall doom him wrath and woe."
[Pg 130] He paused—the word the vassals took,
210 With forward step and fiery look,
On high their naked brands they shook,
Their clattering targets wildly strook;
And first in murmur low,
Then, like the billow in his course,
215 That far to seaward finds his source,
And flings to shore his mustered force,
Burst, with loud roar, their answer hoarse,
"Woe to the traitor, woe!"
Ben-an's grey scalp the accents knew,
220 The joyous wolf from cover drew,
The exulting eagle screamed afar—
They knew the voice of Alpine's war.

The shout was hushed on lake and fell,
The Monk resumed his muttered spell;
225 Dismal and low its accents came,
The while he scathed the Cross with flame:
And the few words that reached the air,
Although the holiest name was there,
Had more of blasphemy than prayer.
230 But when he shook above the crowd
Its kindled points, he spoke aloud:
"Woe to the wretch, who fails to rear
At this dread sign the ready spear!
For, as the flames this symbol sear,
235 His home, the refuge of his fear,
[Pg 131] A kindred fate shall know;
Far o'er its roof the volumed flame
Clan-Alpine's vengeance shall proclaim,
While maids and matrons on his name
240 Shall call down wretchedness and shame,
And infamy and woe."
Then rose the cry of females, shrill
As goshawk's whistle on the hill,
Denouncing misery and ill,
245 Mingled with childhood's babbling trill
Of curses stammered slow;
Answering, with imprecation dread,
"Sunk be his home in embers red!
And curséd be the meanest shed
250 That e'er shall hide the houseless head
We doom to want and woe!"
A sharp and shrieking echo gave,
Coir-Uriskin, thy goblin cave!note
And the gray pass where birches wave,
255 On Beala-nam-bo.

Then deeper paused the priest anew,
And hard his laboring breath he drew,
While, with set teeth and clenched hand,
And eyes that glowed like fiery brand,
260 He meditated curse more dread,
And deadlier, on the clansman's head,
[Pg 132] Who, summoned to his chieftain's aid,
The signal saw and disobeyed.
The crosslet's points of sparkling wood
265 He quenched among the bubbling blood,
And, as again the sign he reared,
Hollow and hoarse his voice was heard:
"When flits this Cross from man to man,
Vich-Alpine's summons to his clan,
270 Burst be the ear that fails to heed!
Palsied the foot that shuns to speed!
May ravens tear the careless eyes,
Wolves make the coward heart their prize!
As sinks that blood-stream in the earth,
275 So may his heart's blood drench his hearth!
As dies in hissing gore the spark,
Quench thou his light, Destruction dark!
And be the grace to him denied,
Bought by this sign to all beside!"
280 He ceased; no echo gave again
The murmur of the deep Amen.

XII

Then Roderick, with impatient look,
From Brian's hand the symbol took:
"Speed, Malise, speed!" he said, and gave
285 The crosslet to his henchman brave.
"The muster-place be Lanrick mead—note
Instant the time—speed, Malise, speed!"
[Pg 133] Like heath-bird, when the hawks pursue,
A barge across Loch Katrine flew;
290 High stood the henchman on the prow,
So rapidly the barge-men row,
The bubbles, where they launched the boat,
Were all unbroken and afloat,
Dancing in foam and ripple still,
295 When it had neared the mainland hill;
And from the silver beach's side
Still was the prow three fathom wide,
When lightly bounded to the land
The messenger of blood and brand.

XIII

300 Speed, Malise, speed! the dun deer's hidenote
On fleeter foot was never tied.
Speed, Malise, speed! such cause of haste
Thine active sinews never braced.
Bend 'gainst the steepy hill thy breast,
305 Burst down like torrent from its crest;
With short and springing footstep pass
The trembling bog and false morass;
Across the brook like roebuck bound,
And thread the brake like questing hound;
310 The crag is high, the scar is deep,
Yet shrink not from the desperate leap:
Parched are thy burning lips and brow.
Yet by the fountain pause not now;
[Pg 134] Herald of battle, fate, and fear,
315 Stretch onward in thy fleet career!
The wounded hind thou track'st not now,
Pursuest not maid through greenwood bough,
Nor pliest thou now thy flying pace,
With rivals in the mountain race;
320 But danger, death, and warrior deed,
Are in thy course—speed, Malise, speed!

XIV

Fast as the fatal symbol flies,
In arms the huts and hamlets rise;
From winding glen, from upland brown,
325 They poured each hardy tenant down.
Nor slacked the messenger his pace;
He showed the sign, he named the place,
And, pressing forward like the wind,
Left clamor and surprise behind.
330 The fisherman forsook the strand,
The swarthy smith took dirk and brand;
With changéd cheer, the mower blithe
Left in the half-cut swathe the scythe;
The herds without a keeper strayed,
335 The plow was in mid-furrow stayed,
The falc'ner tossed his hawk away,
The hunter left the stag at bay;
Prompt at the signal of alarms,
Each son of Alpine rushed to arms;
340 [Pg 135] So swept the tumult and affray
Along the margin of Achray.
Alas, thou lovely lake! that e'er
Thy banks should echo sounds of fear!
The rocks, the bosky thickets, sleep
345 So stilly on thy bosom deep,
The lark's blithe carol, from the cloud
Seems for the scene too gaily loud.

Speed, Malise, speed! the lake is past,
Duncraggan's huts appear at last,note
350 And peep, like moss-grown rocks, half seen,
Half hidden in the copse so green;
There mayst thou rest, thy labor done,
Their Lord shall speed the signal on.
As stoops the hawk upon his prey,
355 The henchman shot him down the way.
—What woeful accents load the gale?
The funeral yell, the female wail!
A gallant hunter's sport is o'er,
A valiant warrior fights no more.
360 Who, in the battle or the chase,
At Roderick's side shall fill his place!—
Within the hall, where torches' ray
Supplies the excluded beams of day,
Lies Duncan on his lowly bier,
365 And o'er him streams his widow's tear.
[Pg 136] His stripling son stands mournful by,
His youngest weeps, but knows not why;
The village maids and matrons round
The dismal coronach resound.note

XVI

CORONACH

370 He is gone on the mountain,
He is lost to the forest,
Like a summer-dried fountain,
When our need was the sorest.
The font, reappearing,
375 From the raindrops shall borrow,
But to us comes no cheering,
To Duncan no morrow!

The hand of the reaper
Takes the ears that are hoary,
380 But the voice of the weeper
Wails manhood in glory.
The autumn winds rushing
Waft the leaves that are searest,
But our flower was in flushing,
385 When blighting was nearest.

Fleet foot on the correi,note
Sage counsel in cumber,note
Red hand in the foray,
How sound is thy slumber!
390 [Pg 137] Like dew on the mountain,
Like the foam on the river,
Like the bubble on the fountain
Thou art gone, and forever!

XVII

See Stumah, who, the bier beside,note
395 His master's corpse with wonder eyed—
Poor Stumah! whom his least halloo
Could send like lightning o'er the dew,
Bristles his crest, and points his ears,
As if some stranger step he hears.
400 'Tis not a mourner's muffled tread,
Who comes to sorrow o'er the dead,
But headlong haste, or deadly fear,
Urge the precipitate career.
All stand aghast—unheeding all,
405 The henchman bursts into the hall;
Before the dead man's bier he stood;
Held forth the Cross besmeared with blood:
"The muster-place is Lanrick mead;
Speed forth the signal! clansmen, speed!"

XVIII

410 Angus, the heir of Duncan's line,
Sprung forth and seized the fatal sign.
In haste the stripling to his side
His father's dirk and broadsword tied;
[Pg 138] But when he saw his mother's eye
415 Watch him in speechless agony,
Back to her opened arms he flew,
Pressed on her lips a fond adieu—
"Alas!" she sobbed—"and yet be gone,
And speed thee forth, like Duncan's son!"
420 One look he cast upon the bier,
Dashed from his eye the gathering tear,
Breathed deep to clear his laboring breast,
And tossed aloft his bonnet crest,
Then, like the high-bred colt, when, freed,
425 First he essays his fire and speed,
He vanished, and o'er moor and moss
Sped forward with the Fiery Cross.
Suspended was the widow's tear,
While yet his footsteps she could hear;
430 And when she marked the henchman's eye
Wet with unwonted sympathy,
"Kinsman," she said, "his race is run,
That should have sped thine errand on;
The oak has fallen—the sapling bough
435 Is all Duncraggan's shelter now.
Yet trust I well, his duty done,
The orphan's God will guard my son.
And you, in many a danger true,
At Duncan's hest your blades that drew,
440 To arms, and guard that orphan's head!
Let babes and women wail the dead."
Then weapon-clang and martial call
Resounded through the funeral hall,
[Pg 139] While from the walls the attendant band
445 Snatched sword and targe, with hurried hand;
And short and flitting energy
Glanced from the mourner's sunken eye,
As if the sounds to warrior dear,
Might rouse her Duncan from his bier.
450 But faded soon that borrowed force;
Grief claimed his right, and tears their course.

XIX

Benledi saw the Cross of Fire;
It glanced like lightning up Strath-Ire.
O'er dale and hill the summons flew,
455 Nor rest nor pause young Angus knew;
The tear that gathered in his eye
He left the mountain breeze to dry;
Until, where Teith's young waters roll
Betwixt him and a wooded knoll
460 That graced the sable strath with green,
The chapel of St. Bride was seen.note
Swoln was the stream, remote the bridge,
But Angus paused not on the edge;
Though the dark waves danced dizzily,
465 Though reeled his sympathetic eye,
He dashed amid the torrent's roar.
His right hand high the crosslet bore,
His left the pole-ax grasped, to guidenote
And stay his footing in the tide.
470 He stumbled twice—the foam splashed high;
With hoarser swell the stream raced by;
[Pg 140] And had he fallen—forever there,
Farewell Duncraggan's orphan heir!
But still, as if in parting life,
475 Firmer he grasped the Cross of strife,
Until the opposing bank he gained,
And up the chapel pathway strained.

A blithesome rout, that morning tide,
Had sought the chapel of St. Bride.
480 Her troth Tombea's Mary gavenote
To Norman, heir of Armandave.
And, issuing from the Gothic arch,
The bridal now resumed their march.
In rude, but glad procession, came
485 Bonneted sire and coif-clad dame;
And plaided youth, with jest and jeer,
Which snooden maiden would not hear:
And children, that, unwitting why,
Lent the gay shout their shrilly cry;
490 And minstrels, that in measures vied
Before the young and bonny bride,
Whose downcast eye and cheek disclose
The tear and blush of morning rose.
With virgin step, and bashful hand,
495 She held the kerchief's snowy band;
The gallant bridegroom, by her side,
Beheld his prize with victor's pride,
And the glad mother in her ear
Was closely whispering word of cheer.

[Pg 141] XXI

500 Who meets them at the churchyard gate?
The messenger of fear and fate!
Haste in his hurried accent lies,
And grief is swimming in his eyes.
All dripping from the recent flood,
505 Panting and travel-soiled he stood,
The fatal sign of fire and sword
Held forth, and spoke the appointed word:
"The muster-place is Lanrick mead;
Speed forth the signal! Norman, speed!"
510 And must he change so soon the hand,
Just linked to his by holy band,
For the fell Cross of blood and brand?
And must the day, so blithe that rose
And promised rapture in the close,
515 Before its setting hour, divide
The bridegroom from the plighted bride?
O fatal doom!—it must! it must!
Clan-Alpine's cause, her Chieftain's trust,
Her summons dread, brook no delay;
520 Stretch to the race—away! away!

XXII

Yet slow he laid his plaid aside,
And, lingering, eyed his lovely bride,
Until he saw the starting tear
Speak woe he might not stop to cheer;
525 Then, trusting not a second look,
In haste he sped him up the brook,
[Pg 142] Nor backward glanced, till on the heath
Where Lubnaig's lake supplies the Teith.
—What in the racer's bosom stirred?
530 The sickening pang of hope deferred,
And memory, with a torturing train
Of all his morning visions vain.
Mingled with love's impatience came
The manly thirst for martial fame;
535 The stormy joy of mountaineers,
Ere yet they rush upon the spears;
And zeal for Clan and Chieftain burning,
And hope, from well-fought field returning,
With war's red honors on his crest,
540 To clasp his Mary to his breast.
Stung by such thoughts, o'er bank and brae,
Like fire from flint he glanced away,
While high resolve, and feeling strong,
Burst into voluntary song.

XXIII

SONG

545 The heath this night must be my bed,
The bracken curtain for my head,note
My lullaby the warder's tread,
Far, far, from love and thee, Mary;
To-morrow eve, more stilly laid,
550 My couch may be my bloody plaid,
My vesper song, thy wail, sweet maid!
It will not waken me, Mary!
[Pg 143] I may not, dare not, fancy now
The grief that clouds thy lovely brow,
555 I dare not think upon thy vow,
And all it promised me, Mary.
No fond regret must Norman know;
When bursts Clan-Alpine on the foe,
His heart must be like bended bow,
560 His foot like arrow free, Mary.

A time will come with feeling fraught,
For if I fall in battle fought,
Thy hapless lover's dying thought
Shall be a thought on thee, Mary.
565 And if returned from conquered foes,
How blithely will the evening close,
How sweet the linnet sing repose,
To my young bride and me, Mary!

XXIV

Not faster o'er thy heathery braes,
570 Balquidder, speeds the midnight blaze,note
Rushing, in conflagration strong,
Thy deep ravines and dells along,
Wrapping thy cliffs in purple glow,
And reddening the dark lakes below;
575 Nor faster speeds it, nor so far,
As o'er thy heaths the voice of war.
The signal roused to martial coil,
The sullen margin of Loch Voil,note
[Pg 144] Waked still Loch Doine, and to the source
580 Alarmed, Balvaig, thy swampy course;
Thence southward turned its rapid road
Adown Strath-Gartney's valley broad,
Till rose in arms each man might claim
A portion in Clan-Alpine's name,
585 From the gray sire, whose trembling hand
Could hardly buckle on his brand,
To the raw boy, whose shaft and bow
Were yet scarce terror to the crow.
Each valley, each sequestered glen,
590 Mustered its little horde of men,
That met as torrents from the height
In Highland dales their streams unite,
Still gathering, as they pour along,
A voice more loud, a tide more strong,
595 Till at the rendezvous they stood
By hundreds prompt for blows and blood,
Each trained to arms since life began,
Owning no tie but to his clan,
No oath, but by his chieftain's hand,
600 No law, but Roderick Dhu's command.

XXV

That summer morn had Roderick Dhu
Surveyed the skirts of Benvenue,
And sent his scouts o'er hill and heath,
To view the frontiers of Menteith.
605 All backward came with news of truce;
Still lay each martial Graeme and Bruce;
[Pg 145] In Rednoch courts no horsemen wait,
No banner waved on Cardross gate,
On Duchray's towers no beacon shone,
610 Nor scared the herons from Loch Con;
All seemed at peace. Now wot ye why
The Chieftain, with such anxious eye,
Ere to the muster he repair,
This western frontier scanned with care?
615 In Benvenue's most darksome cleft,
A fair, though cruel, pledge was left;
For Douglas, to his promise true,
That morning from the isle withdrew,
And in a deep sequestered dell
620 Had sought a low and lonely cell.
By many a bard, in Celtic tongue,
Has Coir-nan-Uriskin been sung;note
A softer name the Saxons gave,
And called the grot the Goblin-cave.

XXVI

625 It was a wild and strange retreat,
As e'er was trod by outlaw's feet.
The dell, upon the mountain's crest,
Yawned like a gash on warrior's breast;
Its trench had stayed full many a rock,
630 Hurled by primeval earthquake shock
From Benvenue's gray summit wild,
And here, in random ruin piled,
They frowned incumbent o'er the spot,
And formed the rugged silvan grot.
635 [Pg 146] The oak and birch, with mingled shade,
At noontide there a twilight made,
Unless when short and sudden shone
Some straggling beam on cliff or stone,
With such a glimpse as prophet's eye
640 Gains on thy depth, Futurity.
No murmur waked the solemn still,note
Save tinkling of a fountain rill;
But when the wind chafed with the lake,
A sullen sound would upward break,
645 With dashing hollow voice, that spoke
The incessant war of wave and rock.
Suspended cliffs, with hideous sway,
Seemed nodding o'er the cavern gray.
From such a den the wolf had sprung,
650 In such the wild-cat leaves her young;
Yet Douglas and his daughter fair
Sought for a space their safety there.
Gray Superstition's whisper dread
Debarred the spot to vulgar tread;
655 For there, she said, did fays resort,
And satyrs hold their silvan court,note
By moonlight tread their mystic maze,
And blast the rash beholder's gaze.

XXVII

Now eve, with western shadows long,
660 Floated on Katrine bright and strong,
When Roderick, with a chosen few,
Repassed the heights of Benvenue.
[Pg 147] Above the Goblin-cave they go,
Through the wild pass of Beal-nam-bo:note
665 The prompt retainers speed before,
To launch the shallop from the shore,
For 'cross Loch Katrine lies his way
To view the passes of Achray,
And place his clansmen in array.
670 Yet lags the chief in musing mind,
Unwonted sight, his men behind.
A single page, to bear his sword,note
Alone attended on his lord;
The rest their way through thickets break,
675 And soon await him by the lake.
It was a fair and gallant sight,
To view them from the neighboring height,
By the low-leveled sunbeam's light!
For strength and stature, from the clan
680 Each warrior was a chosen man,
As even afar might well be seen,
By their proud step and martial mien.
Their feathers dance, their tartans float,
Their targets gleam, as by the boat
685 A wild and warlike group they stand,
That well became such mountain-strand.

XXVIII

Their Chief, with step reluctant, still
Was lingering on the craggy hill,
Hard by where turned apart the road
690 To Douglas's obscure abode.
[Pg 148] It was but with that dawning morn,
That Roderick Dhu had proudly sworn
To drown his love in war's wild roar,
Nor think of Ellen Douglas more;
695 But he who stems a stream with sand,
And fetters flame with flaxen band,
Has yet a harder task to prove—
By firm resolve to conquer love!
Eve finds the Chief, like restless ghost,
700 Still hovering near his treasure lost;
For though his haughty heart deny
A parting meeting to his eye,
Still fondly strains his anxious ear,
The accents of her voice to hear,
705 And inly did he curse the breeze
That waked to sound the rustling trees.
But hark! what mingles in the strain?
It is the harp of Allan-bane,
That wakes its measures slow and high,
710 Attuned to sacred minstrelsy.
What melting voice attends the strings?
'Tis Ellen, or an angel, sings.

XXIX

HYMN TO THE VIRGIN

Ave Maria! maiden mild!
Listen to a maiden's prayer!
715 Thou canst hear though from the wild,
Thou canst save amid despair.
[Pg 149] Safe may we sleep beneath thy care,
Though banished, outcast, and reviled—
Maiden! hear a maiden's prayer;
720 Mother, hear a suppliant child!
Ave Maria!
Ave Maria! undefiled!
The flinty couch we now must share
Shall seem with down of eider piled,
725 If thy protection hover there.
The murky cavern's heavy air
Shall breathe of balm if thou hast smiled;
Then, Maiden! hear a maiden's prayer;
Mother, list a suppliant child!
730 Ave Maria!
Ave Maria! stainless styled!
Foul demons of the earth and air,
From this their wonted haunt exiled,
Shall flee before thy presence fair.
735 We bow us to our lot of care,
Beneath thy guidance reconciled;
Hear for a maid a maiden's prayer,
And for a father hear a child!
Ave Maria!

XXX

740 Died on the harp the closing hymn—
Unmoved in attitude and limb,
As listening still, Clan-Alpine's lord
Stood leaning on his heavy sword,
[Pg 150] Until the page, with humble sign,
745 Twice pointed to the sun's decline.
Then while his plaid he round him cast,
"It is the last time—'tis the last,"
He muttered thrice, "the last time e'er
That angel voice shall Roderick hear!"
750 It was a goading thought—his stride
Hied hastier down the mountain side;
Sullen he flung him in the boat,
And instant 'cross the lake it shot.
They landed in that silvery bay,
755 And eastward held their hasty way,
Till, with the latest beams of light,
The band arrived on Lanrick height,
Where mustered, in the vale below,
Clan-Alpine's men in martial show.

XXXI

760 A various scene the clansmen made,
Some sat, some stood, some slowly strayed;
But most with mantles folded round,
Were couched to rest upon the ground,
Scarce to be known by curious eye,
765 From the deep heather where they lie,
So well was matched the tartan screen
With heath-bell dark and brackens green,
Unless where, here and there, a blade,
Or lance's point, a glimmer made,
770 Like glow-worm twinkling through the shade.
[Pg 151] But when, advancing through the gloom,
They saw the Chieftain's eagle plume,
Their shout of welcome, shrill and wide,
Shook the steep mountain's steady side.
775 Thrice it arose, and lake and fell
Three times returned the martial yell;
It died upon Bochastle's plain,
And Silence claimed her evening reign.

[Pg 152] CANTO FOURTH

THE PROPHECY

"The rose is fairest when 'tis budding new,
And hope is brightest when it dawns from fears;
The rose is sweetest washed with morning dew,
And love is loveliest when embalmed in tears.
5 O wilding rose, whom fancy thus endears,
I bid your blossoms in my bonnet wave,
Emblem of hope and love through future years!"
Thus spake young Norman, heir of Armandave,
What time the sun arose on Vennachar's broad wave.

10 Such fond conceit, half said, half sung,
Love prompted to the bridegroom's tongue.
All while he stripped the wild-rose spray,
His ax and bow beside him lay,
For on a pass 'twixt lake and wood,
15 A wakeful sentinel he stood.
[Pg 153] Hark! on the rock a footstep rung,
And instant to his arms he sprung.
"Stand, or thou diest!—What, Malise?—soon
Art thou returned from Braes of Doune.note
20 By thy keen step and glance I know,
Thou bring'st us tidings of the foe."
For while the Fiery Cross hied on,
On distant scout had Malise gone.—
"Where sleeps the Chief?" the henchman said.
25 "Apart, in yonder misty glade;
To his lone couch I'll be your guide."
Then called a slumberer by his side,
And stirred him with his slackened bow—
"Up, up, Glantarkin! rouse thee, ho!
30 We seek the Chieftain; on the track,
Keep eagle watch till I come back."

III

Together up the pass they sped:
"What of the foeman?" Norman said.
"Varying reports from near and far;
35 This certain—that a band of war
Has for two days been ready boune,note
At prompt command, to march from Doune;
King James, the while, with princely powers,
Holds revelry in Stirling towers.
40 Soon will this dark and gathering cloud
Speak on our glens in thunder loud.
Inured to bide such bitter bout,
The warrior's plaid may bear it out;
[Pg 154] But, Norman, how wilt thou provide
45 A shelter for thy bonny bride?"
"What! know ye not that Roderick's care
To the lone isle hath caused repair
Each maid and matron of the clan,
And every child and aged man
50 Unfit for arms; and given his charge,
Nor skiff nor shallop, boat nor barge,
Upon these lakes shall float at large,
But all beside the islet moor,
That such dear pledge may rest secure?"—

55 "'Tis well advised—the Chieftain's plan
Bespeaks the father of his clan.
But wherefore sleeps Sir Roderick Dhu
Apart from all his followers true?"
"It is, because last evening-tide
60 Brian an augury hath tried,
Of that dread kind which must not be
Unless in dread extremity,
The Taghairm called; by which, afar,note
Our sires foresaw the events of war.
65 Duncraggan's milk-white bull they slew."

MALISE

"Ah! Well the gallant brute I knew,
The choicest of the prey we had,
When swept our merrymen Gallangad.note
His hide was snow, his horns were dark,
70 [Pg 155] His red eye glowed like fiery spark;
So fierce, so tameless, and so fleet,
Sore did he cumber our retreat,
And kept our stoutest kerns in awe,note
Even at the pass of Beal 'maha.
75 But steep and flinty was the road,
And sharp the hurrying pikeman's goad,
And when we came to Dennan's Row,
A child might scatheless stroke his brow."note

V

NORMAN

"That bull was slain; his reeking hide
80 They stretched the cataract beside,
Whose waters their wild tumult toss
Adown the black and craggy bossnote
Of that huge cliff, whose ample verge
Tradition calls the Hero's Targe.
85 Couched on a shelf beneath its brink,
Close where the thundering torrents sink,
Rocking beneath their headlong sway,
And drizzled by the ceaseless spray,
Midst groan of rock, and roar of stream,
90 The wizard waits prophetic dream.
Nor distant rests the Chief—but hush!
See, gliding slow through mist and bush,
The hermit gains yon rock, and stands
To gaze upon our slumbering bands.
95 [Pg 156] Seems he not, Malise, like a ghost,
That hovers o'er a slaughtered host?
Or raven on the blasted oak,
That, watching while the deer is broke,note
His morsel claims with sullen croak?"

MALISE

100 "Peace! peace! to other than to me
Thy words were evil augury;
But still I hold Sir Roderick's blade
Clan-Alpine's omen and her aid,
Not aught that, gleaned from heaven or hell,
105 Yon fiend-begotten Monk can tell.
The Chieftain joins him, see—and now,
Together they descend the brow."

And, as they came, with Alpine's Lord
The Hermit Monk held solemn word:
110 "Roderick! it is a fearful strife,
For man endowed with mortal life,
Whose shroud of sentient clay can still
Feel feverish pang and fainting chill,
Whose eye can stare in stony trance,
115 Whose hair can rouse like warrior's lance—
'Tis hard for such to view, unfurled,
The curtain of the future world.
Yet, witness every quaking limb,
My sunken pulse, my eyeballs dim,
120 [Pg 157] My soul with harrowing anguish torn—
This for my Chieftain have I borne!
The shapes that sought my fearful couch,
A human tongue may ne'er avouch;
No mortal man—save he, who, bred
125 Between the living and the dead,
Is gifted beyond nature's law—
Had e'er survived to say he saw.
At length the fatal answer came,
In characters of living flame!
130 Not spoke in word, nor blazed in scroll,
But borne and branded on my soul:
Which spills the foremost foeman's life,
That party conquers in the strife."

VII

"Thanks, Brian, for thy zeal and care!
135 Good is thine augury, and fair.
Clan-Alpine ne'er in battle stood,
But first our broadswords tasted blood.
A surer victim still I know,
Self-offered to the auspicious blow:
140 A spy has sought my land this morn—note
No eve shall witness his return!
My followers guard each pass's mouth,
To east, to westward, and to south;
Red Murdoch, bribed to be his guide,
145 Has charge to lead his steps aside,
Till in deep path or dingle brown,
He light on those shall bring him down.
[Pg 158] —But see, who comes his news to show!
Malise! what tidings of the foe?"

VIII

150 "At Doune, o'er many a spear and glaivenote
Two Barons proud their banners wave.
I saw the Moray's silver star,
And marked the sable pale of Mar."note
"By Alpine's soul, high tidings those!
155 I love to hear of worthy foes.
When move they on?" "Tomorrow's noon
Will see them here for battle boune."
"Then shall it see a meeting stern!
But, for the place—say, couldst thou learn
160 Nought of the friendly clans of Earn?
Strengthened by them, we well might bide
The battle on Benledi's side.
Thou couldst not! Well! Clan-Alpine's men
Shall man the Trossachs' shaggy glen;
165 Within Loch Katrine's gorge we'll fight,
All in our maids' and matrons' sight,
Each for his hearth and household fire,
Father for child, and son for sire—
Lover for maid beloved! But why—
170 Is it the breeze affects mine eye?
Or dost thou come, ill-omened tear!
A messenger of doubt and fear?
No! sooner may the Saxon lance
Unfix Benledi from his stance,note
175 [Pg 159] Than doubt or terror can pierce through
The unyielding heart of Roderick Dhu!
'Tis stubborn as his trusty targe.
Each to his post—all know their charge."
The pibroch sounds, the bands advance,
180 The broadswords gleam, the banners dance,
Obedient to the Chieftain's glance.
—I turn me from the martial roar,
And seek Coir-Uriskin once more.

Where is the Douglas?—he is gone;
185 And Ellen sits on the gray stone
Fast by the cave, and makes her moan;
While vainly Allan's words of cheer
Are poured on her unheeding ear:
"He will return—dear lady trust!
190 With joy return—he will—he must.
Well was it time to seek, afar,
Some refuge from impending war,
When e'en Clan-Alpine's rugged swarm
Are cowed by the approaching storm.
195 I saw their boats with many a light,
Floating the live-long yesternight,
Shifting like flashes darted forth
By the red streamers of the north;
I marked at morn how close they ride,
200 Thick moored by the lone islet's side,
[Pg 160] Like wild-ducks couching in the fen,
When stoops the hawk upon the glen.
Since this rude race dare not abide
The peril on the mainland side,
205 Shall not thy noble father's care
Some safe retreat for thee prepare?"

X

ELLEN

"No, Allan, no! Pretext so kind
My wakeful terrors could not blind.
When in such tender tone, yet grave,
210 Douglas a parting blessing gave,
The tear that glistened in his eye
Drowned not his purpose fixed and high.
My soul, though feminine and weak,
Can image his; e'en as the lake,
215 Itself disturbed by slightest stroke,
Reflects the invulnerable rock.
He hears the report of battle rife,
He deems himself the cause of strife.
I saw him redden, when the theme
220 Turned, Allan, on thine idle dream
Of Malcolm Graeme in fetters bound,
Which I, thou saidst, about him wound.
Think'st thou he trowed thine omen aught?
Oh, no! 'twas apprehensive thought
225 For the kind youth—for Roderick too—
Let me be just—that friend so true;
[Pg 161] In danger both, and in our cause!
Minstrel, the Douglas dare not pause.
Why else that solemn warning given,
230 'If not on earth, we meet in heaven!'
Why else, to Cambus-kenneth's fane,note
If eve return him not again,
Am I to hie, and make me known?
Alas! he goes to Scotland's throne,
235 Buys his friend's safety with his own;
He goes to do—what I had done,
Had Douglas' daughter been his son!"

"Nay, lovely Ellen!—dearest, nay!
If aught should his return delay,
240 He only named yon holy fane
As fitting place to meet again.
Be sure he's safe; and for the Graeme—
Heaven's blessing on his gallant name!
My visioned sight may yet prove true,
245 Nor bode of ill to him or you.
When did my gifted dream beguile?
Think of the stranger at the isle,
And think upon the harpings slow,
That presaged this approaching woe!
250 Sooth was my prophecy of fear;
Believe it when it augurs cheer.
Would we had left this dismal spot!
Ill luck still haunts a fairy grot.
[Pg 162] Of such a wondrous tale I know—
255 Dear lady, change that look of woe,
My harp was wont thy grief to cheer."

ELLEN

"Well, be it as thou wilt; I hear,
But cannot stop the bursting tear."
The minstrel tried his simple art,
260 But distant far was Ellen's heart.

XII

BALLAD—ALICE BRAND

Merry it is in the good greenwood,
When the mavis and merle are singing,note
When the deer sweeps by, and the hounds are in cry,
And the hunter's horn is ringing.

265 "O Alice Brand, my native land
Is lost for love of you;
And we must hold by wood and wold,
As outlaws wont to do.

"O Alice, 'twas all for thy locks so bright,
270 And 'twas all for thine eyes so blue,
That on the night of our luckless flight,
Thy brother bold I slew.

[Pg 163] "Now must I teach to hew the beech
The hand that held the glaive,
275 For leaves to spread our lowly bed,
And stakes to fence our cave.

"And for vest of pall, thy fingers small,
That wont on harp to stray,
A cloak must shear from the slaughtered deer,
280 To keep the cold away."

"O Richard! if my brother died,
'Twas but a fatal chance;
For darkling was the battle tried,note
And fortune sped the lance.

285 "If pall and vair no more I wear,note
Nor thou the crimson sheen,
As warm, we'll say, is the russet gray,
As gay the forest-green.

"And, Richard, if our lot be hard,
290 And lost thy native land,
Still Alice has her own Richard,
And he his Alice Brand."

XIII

BALLAD—(Continued)

'Tis merry, 'tis merry, in good greenwood,
So blithe Lady Alice is singing;
295 On the beech's pride, and oak's brown side,
Lord Richard's ax is ringing.

[Pg 164] Up spoke the moody Elfin King,
Who wonned within the hill,note
Like wind in the porch of a ruined church,
300 His voice was ghostly shrill.

"Why sounds yon stroke on beech and oak,
Our moonlight circle's screen?
Or who comes here to chase the deer,
Beloved of our Elfin Queen?
305 Or who may dare on wold to wear
The fairies' fatal green?note

"Up, Urgan, up! to yon mortal hie,
For thou wert christened man;note
For cross or sign thou wilt not fly,
310 For muttered word or ban.

"Lay on him the curse of the withered heart,
The curse of the sleepless eye;
Till he wish and pray that his life would part,
Nor yet find leave to die."

XIV

BALLAD—(Continued)

315 'Tis merry, 'tis merry, in good greenwood,
Though the birds have stilled their singing;
The evening blaze doth Alice raise,
And Richard is fagots bringing.

Up Urgan starts, that hideous dwarf,
320 Before Lord Richard stands,
[Pg 165] And, as he crossed and blessed himself,
"I fear not sign," quoth the grisly elf,
"That is made with bloody hands."

But out then spoke she, Alice Brand,
325 That woman void of fear,
"And if there's blood upon his hand,
'Tis but the blood of deer."

"Now loud thou liest, thou bold of mood!
It cleaves unto his hand,
330 The stain of thine own kindly blood,
The blood of Ethert Brand."

Then forward stepped she, Alice Brand,
And made the holy sign,
"And if there's blood on Richard's hand,
335 A spotless hand is mine.

"And I conjure thee, Demon elf,
By Him whom Demons fear,
To show us whence thou art thyself,
And what thine errand here?"

XV

BALLAD—(Continued)

340 "'Tis merry, 'tis merry, in Fairyland
When fairy birds are singing,
When the court doth ride by their monarch's side
[Pg 166] With bit and bridle ringing;

"And gaily shines the Fairyland—
345 But all is glistening show,
Like the idle gleam that December's beam
Can dart on ice and snow.

"And fading, like that varied gleam,
Is our inconstant shape,
350 Who now like knight and lady seem,
And now like dwarf and ape.

"It was between the night and day,
When the Fairy King has power,
That I sunk down in a sinful fray,
355 And, 'twixt life and death, was snatched away
To the joyless Elfin bower.

"But wist I of a woman bold,
Who thrice my brow durst sign,
I might regain my mortal mold,
360 As fair a form as thine."

She crossed him once—she crossed him twice—
That lady was so brave;
The fouler grew his goblin hue,
The darker grew the cave.

365 She crossed him thrice, that lady bold;
He rose beneath her hand
The fairest knight on Scottish mold,
[Pg 167] Her brother, Ethert Brand!

Merry it is in good greenwood,
370 When the mavis and merle are singing,
But merrier were they in Dunfermline gray,note
When all the bells were ringing.

XVI

Just as the minstrel sounds were stayed,
A stranger climbed the steepy glade;
375 His martial step, his stately mien,
His hunting suit of Lincoln green,
His eagle glance, remembrance claims—
'Tis Snowdoun's Knight, 'tis James Fitz-James.
Ellen beheld as in a dream,
380 Then, starting, scarce suppressed a scream
"Oh, stranger! in such hour of fear,
What evil hap has brought thee here?"
"An evil hap how can it be
That bids me look again on thee?
385 By promise bound, my former guidenote
Met me betimes this morning tide,
And marshaled, over bank and bourne,
The happy path of my return."
"The happy path!—what! said he nought
390 Of war, of battle to be fought,
Of guarded pass?" "No, by my faith!
Nor saw I ought could augur scathe."
"O haste thee, Allan, to the kern,
—Yonder his tartans I discern;
395 [Pg 168] Learn thou his purpose, and conjure
That he will guide the stranger sure!
What prompted thee, unhappy man?
The meanest serf in Roderick's clan
Had not been bribed by love or fear,
400 Unknown to him to guide thee here."

XVII

"Sweet Ellen, dear my life must be
Since it is worthy care from thee;
Yet life I hold but idle breath,
When love or honor's weighed with death.
405 Then let me profit by my chance,
And speak my purpose bold at once.
I come to bear thee from a wild,
Where ne'er before such blossom smiled;
By this soft hand to lead thee far
410 From frantic scenes of feud and war.
Near Bochastle my horses wait;
They bear us soon to Stirling gate.
I'll place thee in a lovely bower,
I'll guard thee like a tender flower"—
415 "O hush, Sir Knight! 'twere female art
To say I do not read thy heart;
Too much, before, my selfish ear
Was idly soothed my praise to hear.
That fatal bait hath lured thee back,
420 In deathful hour, o'er dangerous track;
[Pg 169] And how, O how, can I atone
The wreck my vanity brought on!—
One way remains—I'll tell him all—
Yes! struggling bosom, forth it shall!
425 Thou, whose light folly bears the blame,
Buy thine own pardon with thy shame!
But first—my father is a man
Outlawed and exiled, under ban;
The price of blood is on his head,
430 With me 'twere infamy to wed.
Still wouldst thou speak?—then hear the truth!
Fitz-James, there is a noble youth—
If yet he is!—exposed for me
And mine to dread extremity—
435 Thou hast the secret of my heart;
Forgive, be generous, and depart!"

XVIII

Fitz-James knew every wily train
A lady's fickle heart to gain,
But here he knew and felt them vain.
440 There shot no glance from Ellen's eye,
To give her steadfast speech the lie;
In maiden confidence she stood.
Though mantled in her cheek the blood,
And told her love with such a sigh
445 Of deep and hopeless agony,
As death had sealed her Malcolm's doom,
And she sat sorrowing on his tomb.
[Pg 170] Hope vanished from Fitz-James's eye,
But not with hope fled sympathy.
450 He proffered to attend her side,
As brother would a sister guide.
"O little know'st thou Roderick's heart!
Safer for both we go apart.
O haste thee, and from Allan learn,
455 If thou may'st trust yon wily kern."
With hand upon his forehead laid,
The conflict of his mind to shade,
A parting step or two he made;
Then, as some thought had crossed his brain,
460 He paused, and turned, and came again.

XIX

"Hear, lady, yet, a parting word!
It chanced in fight that my poor sword
Preserved the life of Scotland's lord.
This ring the grateful Monarch gave,
465 And bade, when I had boon to crave,
To bring it back, and boldly claim
The recompense that I would name.
Ellen, I am no courtly lord,
But one who lives by lance and sword,
470 Whose castle is his helm and shield,
His lordship the embattled field.
What from a prince can I demand,
Who neither reck of state nor land?
[Pg 171] Ellen, thy hand—the ring is thine;
475 Each guard and usher knows the sign.
Seek thou the king without delay—
This signet shall secure thy way—
And claim thy suit, whate'er it be,
As ransom of his pledge to me."
480 He placed the golden circlet on,
Paused—kissed her hand—and then was gone.
The aged Minstrel stood aghast,
So hastily Fitz-James shot past.
He joined his guide, and wending down
485 The ridges of the mountain brown,
Across the stream they took their way,
That joins Loch Katrine to Achray.

All in the Trossachs' glen was still,
Noontide was sleeping on the hill:
490 Sudden his guide whooped loud and high—
"Murdoch! was that a signal cry?"
He stammered forth—"I shout to scare
Yon raven from his dainty fare."
He looked—he knew the raven's prey,
495 His own brave steed—"Ah! gallant gray!
For thee—for me, perchance—'twere well
We ne'er had seen the Trossachs' dell.
Murdoch, move first—but silently;
Whistle or whoop, and thou shalt die!"
500 [Pg 172] Jealous and sullen on they fared,
Each silent, each upon his guard.

XXI

Now wound the path its dizzy ledge
Around a precipice's edge,
When lo! a wasted female form,
505 Blighted by wrath of sun and storm,
In tattered weeds and wild array,
Stood on a cliff beside the way,
And glancing round her restless eye,
Upon the wood, the rock, the sky,
510 Seemed naught to mark, yet all to spy.
Her brow was wreathed with gaudy broom;
With gesture wild she waved a plume
Of feathers which the eagles fling
To crag and cliff from dusky wing;
515 Such spoils her desperate step had sought,
Where scarce was footing for the goat.
The tartan plaid she first descried,
And shrieked till all the rocks replied;
As loud she laughed when near they drew,
520 For then the Lowland garb she knew;
And then her hands she wildly wrung,
And then she wept, and then she sung—
She sung!—the voice, in better time,
Perchance to harp or lute might chime;
525 And now, though strained and roughened, still
Rung wildly sweet to dale and hill.

[Pg 173] XXII

SONG

They bid me sleep, they bid me pray,
They say my brain is warped and wrung—
I cannot sleep on Highland brae,
530 I cannot pray in Highland tongue.
But were I now where Allan glides,note
Or heard my native Devan's tides,
So sweetly would I rest, and pray
That Heaven would close my wintry day!

535 'Twas thus my hair they bade me braid,
They made me to the church repair;
It was my bridal morn they said,
And my true love would meet me there.
But woe betide the cruel guile
540 That drowned in blood the morning smile!
And woe betide the fairy dream!
I only waked to sob and scream.

XXIII

"Who is this maid? what means her lay?
She hovers o'er the hollow way,
545 And flutters wide her mantle gray,
As the lone heron spreads his wing,
By twilight, o'er a haunted spring."
"'Tis Blanche of Devan," Murdoch said,
"A crazed and captive Lowland maid,
550 [Pg 174] Ta'en on the morn she was a bride,
When Roderick forayed Devan side.
The gay bridegroom resistance made,
And felt our Chief's unconquered blade.
I marvel she is now at large,
555 But oft she 'scapes from Maudlin's charge.note
Hence, brain-sick fool!"—he raised his bow.
"Now, if thou strik'st her but one blow,
I'll pitch thee from the cliff as far
As ever peasant pitched a bar!"—note
560 "Thanks, champion, thanks!" the maniac cried,
And pressed her to Fitz-James's side.
"See the gray pennons I prepare,
To seek my true-love through the air!
I will not lend that savage groom,note
565 To break his fall, one downy plume!
No! Deep amid disjointed stones,
The wolves shall batten on his bones,
And then shall his detested plaid,
By bush and brier in mid air stayed,
570 Wave forth a banner fair and free,
Meet signal for their revelry."

XXIV

"Hush thee, poor maiden, and be still!"
"Oh! thou look'st kindly and I will.
Mine eye has dried and wasted been,
575 But still it loves the Lincoln green;
And, though mine ear is all unstrung,
[Pg 175] Still, still it loves the Lowland tongue.

"For O my sweet William was forester true,
He stole poor Blanche's heart away!
580 His coat it was all of the greenwood hue,
And so blithely he trilled the Lowland lay!

"It was not that I meant to tell....
But thou art wise and guessest well."
Then, in a low and broken tone,
585 And hurried note, the song went on.
Still on the Clansman, fearfully,
She fixed her apprehensive eye;
Then turned it on the Knight, and then
Her look glanced wildly o'er the glen.

XXV

590 "The toils are pitched, and the stakes are set,
Ever sing merrily, merrily;
The bows they bend, and the knives they whet,
Hunters live so cheerily.

"It was a stag, a stag of ten,note
595 Bearing its branches sturdily;
He came stately down the glen,
Ever sing hardily, hardily.

"It was there he met with a wounded doe,
She was bleeding deathfully;
600 She warned him of the toils below,
[Pg 176] Oh, so faithfully, faithfully!

"He had an eye, and he could heed,
Ever sing warily, warily;
He had a foot, and he could speed—
605 Hunters watch so narrowly."

XXVI

Fitz-James's mind was passion-tossed,
When Ellen's hints and fears were lost;
But Murdoch's shout suspicion wrought,
And Blanche's song conviction brought.
610 Not like a stag that spies the snare,
But lion of the hunt aware,
He waved at once his blade on high,
"Disclose thy treachery, or die!"
Forth at full speed the Clansman flew,
615 But in his race his bow he drew.
The shaft just grazed Fitz-James's crest,
And thrilled in Blanche's faded breast.
Murdoch of Alpine! prove thy speed,
For ne'er had Alpine's son such need!
620 With heart of fire, and foot of wind,
The fierce avenger is behind!
Fate judges of the rapid strife—
The forfeit death—the prize is life!
Thy kindred ambush lies before,
625 Close couched upon the heathery moor;
Them couldst thou reach!—it may not be—
Thine ambushed kin thou ne'er shalt see,
The fiery Saxon gains on thee!
[Pg 177] Resistless speeds the deadly thrust,
630 As lightning strikes the pine to dust;
With foot and hand Fitz-James must strain,
Ere he can win his blade again.
Bent o'er the fallen, with falcon eye,
He grimly smiled to see him die;
635 Then slower wended back his way,
Where the poor maiden bleeding lay.

XXVII

She sat beneath a birchen-tree,
Her elbow resting on her knee;
She had withdrawn the fatal shaft,
640 And gazed on it, and feebly laughed;
Her wreath of broom and feathers gray,
Daggled with blood, beside her lay.
The Knight to staunch the life-stream tried—
"Stranger, it is in vain!" she cried.
645 "This hour of death has given me more
Of reason's power than years before;
For, as these ebbing veins decay,
My frenzied visions fade away.
A helpless injured wretch I die,
650 And something tells me in thine eye,
That thou wert mine avenger born.
Seest thou this tress?—Oh! still I've worn
This little tress of yellow hair,
Through danger, frenzy, and despair!
655 [Pg 178] It once was bright and clear as thine,
But blood and tears have dimmed its shine.
I will not tell thee when 'twas shred,
Nor from what guiltless victim's head—
My brain would turn!—but it shall wave
660 Like plumage on thy helmet brave,
Till sun and wind shall bleach the stain,
And thou wilt bring it me again.
I waver still—O God! more bright
Let reason beam her parting light!—
665 Oh! by thy knighthood's honored sign,
And for thy life preserved by mine,
When thou shalt see a darksome man,
Who boasts him Chief of Alpine's Clan,
With tartans broad and shadowy plume
670 And hand of blood, and brow of gloom,
Be thy heart bold, thy weapon strong,
And wreak poor Blanche of Devan's wrong!—
They watch for thee by pass and fell....
Avoid the path.... O God!... farewell."

XXVIII

675 A kindly heart had brave Fitz-James;
Fast poured his eyes at pity's claims,
And now, with mingled grief and ire,
He saw the murdered maid expire.
"God, in my need, be my relief,
680 As I wreak this on yonder Chief!"
A lock from Blanche's tresses fair
[Pg 179] He blended with her bridegroom's hair;
The mingled braid in blood he dyed.
And placed it on his bonnet-side:
685 "By Him whose word is truth! I swear
No other favor will I wear,
Till this sad token I imbrue
In the best blood of Roderick Dhu!
—But hark! what means yon faint halloo?
690 The chase is up—but they shall know,
The stag at bay's a dangerous foe."
Barred from the known but guarded way,
Through copse and cliffs Fitz-James must stray,
And oft must change his desperate track,
695 By stream and precipice turned back.
Heartless, fatigued, and faint, at length,
From lack of food and loss of strength,
He couched him in a thicket hoar,
And thought his toils and perils o'er:
700 "Of all my rash adventures past,
This frantic feat must prove the last!
Who e'er so mad but might have guessed,
That all this Highland hornet's nest
Would muster up in swarms so soon
705 As e'er they heard of bands at Doune?
Like bloodhounds now they search me out—
Hark, to the whistle and the shout!—
If further through the wilds I go,
I only fall upon the foe.
710 I'll couch me here till evening gray,
Then darkling try my dangerous way."

[Pg 180] XXIX

The shades of eve come slowly down,
The woods are wrapped in deeper brown,
The owl awakens from her dell,
715 The fox is heard upon the fell;
Enough remains of glimmering light
To guide the wanderer's steps aright,
Yet not enough from far to show
His figure to the watchful foe.
720 With cautious step, and ear awake,
He climbs the crag and threads the brake;
And not the summer solstice, there,
Tempered the midnight mountain air,
But every breeze, that swept the wold,
725 Benumbed his drenchéd limbs with cold.
In dread, in danger, and alone,
Famished and chilled, through ways unknown,
Tangled and steep, he journeyed on;
Till, as a rock's huge point he turned,
730 A watch-fire close before him burned.

XXX

Beside its embers red and clear,
Basked, in his plaid, a mountaineer;
And up he sprung with sword in hand—
"Thy name and purpose! Saxon, stand!"
735 "A stranger." "What dost thou require?"
"Rest and a guide, and food and fire.
[Pg 181] My life's beset, my path is lost,
The gale has chilled my limbs with frost."
"Art thou a friend to Roderick?" "No."
740 "Thou darest not call thyself a foe?"
"I dare! to him and all the band
He brings to aid his murderous hand."
"Bold words!—but, though the beast of game
The privilege of chase may claim,
745 Though space and law the stag we lend,
Ere hound we slip, or bow we bend,
Who ever recked, where, how, or when,
The prowling fox was trapped or slain?
Thus treacherous scouts—yet sure they lie,
750 Who say thou camest a secret spy!"
"They do, by heaven!—Come Roderick Dhu,
And of his clan the boldest two,
And let me but till morning rest,
I write the falsehood on their crest."
755 "If by the blaze I mark aright,
Thou bear'st the belt and spur of Knight."
"Then by these tokens may'st thou know
Each proud oppressor's mortal foe."
"Enough, enough; sit down and share
760 A soldier's couch, a soldier's fare."

XXXI

He gave him of his Highland cheer,
The hardened flesh of mountain deer;
Dry fuel on the fire he laid,
And bade the Saxon share his plaid.
765 [Pg 182] He tended him like welcome guest,
Then thus his further speech addressed:
"Stranger, I am to Roderick Dhu
A clansman born, a kinsman true;
Each word against his honor spoke,
770 Demands of me avenging stroke;
Yet more—upon thy fate, 'tis said,
A mighty augury is laid.
It rests with me to wind my horn—
Thou art with numbers overborne;
775 It rests with me, here, brand to brand,
Worn as thou art, to bid thee stand;
But, not for clan, nor kindred's cause,
Will I depart from honor's laws;
To assail a wearied man were shame,
780 And stranger is a holy name;
Guidance and rest, food and fire,
In vain he never must require.
Then rest thee here till dawn of day;
Myself will guide thee on the way,
785 O'er stock and stone, through watch and ward,
Till past Clan-Alpine's outmost guard,
As far as Coilantogle's ford;
From thence thy warrant is thy sword."
"I take thy courtesy, by heaven,
790 As freely as 'tis nobly given!"
"Well, rest thee; for the bittern's cry
Sings us the lake's wild lullaby."
With that he shook the gathered heath,
And spread his plaid upon the wreath;
795 [Pg 183] And the brave foemen, side by side,
Lay peaceful down like brothers tried,
And slept until the dawning beam
Purpled the mountain and the stream.

[Pg 184] CANTO FIFTH

THE COMBAT

Fair as the earliest beam of eastern light,
When first, by the bewildered pilgrim spied,
It smiles upon the dreary brow of night,
And silvers o'er the torrent's foaming tide,
5 And lights the fearful path on mountain side;
Fair as that beam, although the fairest far,
Giving to horror grace, to danger pride,
Shine martial Faith, and Courtesy's bright star,
Through all the wreckful storms that cloud the brow of War.

10 That early beam, so fair and sheen,
Was twinkling through the hazel screen,
When rousing at its glimmer red,
The warriors left their lowly bed,
Looked out upon the dappled sky,
15 Muttered their soldier matins by,
And then awaked their fire, to steal,
As short and rude, their soldier meal.
[Pg 185] That o'er, the Gael around him threw
His graceful plaid of varied hue,
20 And, true to promise, led the way,
By thicket green and mountain gray.
A wildering path—they winded now
Along the precipice's brow,
Commanding the rich scenes beneath,
25 The windings of the Forth and Teith,
And all the vales between that lie,
Till Stirling's turrets melt in sky;
Then, sunk in copse, their farthest glance
Gained not the length of horseman's lance.
30 'Twas oft so steep, the foot was fain
Assistance from the hand to gain;
So tangled oft, that, bursting through,
Each hawthorn shed her showers of dew—
That diamond dew, so pure and clear,
35 It rivals all but Beauty's tear!

III

At length they came where, stern and steep,
The hill sinks down upon the deep.
Here Vennachar in silver flows,
There, ridge on ridge, Benledi rose;
40 Ever the hollow path twined on,
Beneath steep bank and threatening stone;
An hundred men might hold the post
With hardihood against a host.
[Pg 186] The rugged mountain's scanty cloak
45 Was dwarfish shrubs of birch and oak,
With shingles bare, and cliffs between,note
And patches bright of bracken green,
And heather black, that waved so high,
It held the copse in rivalry.
50 But where the lake slept deep and still,
Dank osiers fringed the swamp and hill;
And oft both path and hill were torn,
Where wintry torrents down had borne,
And heaped upon the cumbered land
55 Its wreck of gravel, rocks and sand.
So toilsome was the road to trace,
The guide, abating of his pace,
Led slowly through the pass's jaws,
And asked Fitz-James, by what strange cause
60 He sought these wilds, traversed by few,
Without a pass from Roderick Dhu.

"Brave Gael, my pass, in danger tried,
Hangs in my belt, and by my side;
Yet, sooth to tell," the Saxon said,
65 "I dreamt not now to claim its aid.
When here, but three days since, I came,
Bewildered in pursuit of game,
All seemed as peaceful and as still
As the mist slumbering on yon hill;
70 [Pg 187] Thy dangerous Chief was then afar,
Nor soon expected back from war.
Thus said, at least, my mountain-guide,
Though deep perchance the villian lied."
"Yet why a second venture try?"
75 "A warrior thou, and ask me why!
Moves our free course by such fixed cause
As gives the poor mechanic laws?
Enough, I sought to drive away
The lazy hours of peaceful day;
80 Slight cause will then suffice to guide
A Knight's free footsteps far and wide—
A falcon flown, a greyhound strayed,
The merry glance of mountain maid;
Or, if a path be dangerous known,
85 The danger's self is lure alone."

"Thy secret keep, I urge thee not;—
Yet, ere again ye sought this spot,
Say, heard ye nought of Lowland war,
Against Clan-Alpine, raised by Mar?"
90 "No, by my word—of bands prepared
To guard King James's sports I heard;
Nor doubt I aught, but, when they hear
This muster of the mountaineer,
Their pennons will abroad be flung,
95 Which else in Doune had peaceful hung."
[Pg 188] "Free be they flung!—for we were loath
Their silken folds should feast the moth.
Free be they flung!—as free shall wave
Clan-Alpine's pine in banner brave.
100 But, Stranger, peaceful since you came,
Bewildered in the mountain game,
Whence the bold boast by which you show
Vich-Alpine's vowed and mortal foe?"
"Warrior, but yester-morn, I knew
105 Naught of thy Chieftain, Roderick Dhu,
Save as an outlawed desperate man,
The chief of a rebellious clan,
Who, in the Regent's court and sight,
With ruffian dagger stabbed a knight;
110 Yet this alone might from his part
Sever each true and loyal heart."

Wrathful at such arraignment foul,
Dark lowered the clansman's sable scowl.
A space he paused, then sternly said,
115 "And heard'st thou why he drew his blade?
Heard'st thou that shameful word and blow
Brought Roderick's vengeance on his foe?
What recked the Chieftain if he stood
On Highland heath, or Holy-Rood?
120 He rights such wrong where it is given,
If it were in the court of heaven."
[Pg 189] "Still was it outrage—yet, 'tis true,
Not then claimed sovereignty his due;
While Albany, with feeble hand,note
125 Held borrowed truncheon of command,
The young King, mewed in Stirling tower,
Was stranger to respect and power.
But then, thy Chieftain's robber life!
Winning mean prey by causeless strife,
130 Wrenching from ruined Lowland swain
His herds and harvest reared in vain—
Methinks a soul, like thine, should scorn
The spoils from such foul foray borne."

VII

The Gael beheld him grim the while,
135 And answered with disdainful smile—
"Saxon, from yonder mountain high,
I marked thee send delighted eye
Far to the south and east, where lay,
Extended in succession gay,
140 Deep waving fields and pastures green,
With gentle slopes and groves between;
These fertile plains, that softened vale,
Were once the birthright of the Gael;
The stranger came with iron hand,
145 And from our fathers reft the land.
Where dwell we now! See, rudely swell
Crag over crag, and fell o'er fell.
[Pg 190] Ask we this savage hill we tread
For fattened steer or household bread;
150 Ask we for flocks these shingles dry,
And well the mountain might reply,
'To you, as to your sires of yore,
Belong the target and claymore!
I give you shelter in my breast,
155 Your own good blades must win the rest.'
Pent in this fortress of the North,
Think'st thou we will not sally forth,
To spoil the spoiler as we may,
And from the robber rend the prey?
160 Aye, by my soul! While on yon plain
The Saxon rears one shock of grain;
While, of ten thousand herds, there strays
But one along yon river's maze,
The Gael, of plain and river heir,
165 Shall, with strong hand, redeem his share.
Where live the mountain Chiefs who hold
That plundering Lowland field and fold
Is aught but retribution true?
Seek other cause 'gainst Roderick Dhu."

VIII

170 Answered Fitz-James, "And if I sought,
Think'st thou no other could be brought?
What deem ye of my path waylaid?
My life given o'er to ambuscade?"
"As of a meed to rashness due:
175 Hadst thou sent warning fair and true—
[Pg 191] I seek my hound, or falcon strayed,
I seek, good faith, a Highland maid—
Free hadst thou been to come and go;
But secret path marks secret foe.
180 Nor yet, for this, even as a spy,
Hadst thou, unheard, been doomed to die.
Save to fulfill an augury."
"Well, let it pass; nor will I now
Fresh cause of enmity avow,
185 To chafe thy mood and cloud thy brow.
Enough, I am by promise tied
To match me with this man of pride:
Twice have I sought Clan-Alpine's glen
In peace; but when I come again,
190 I come with banner, brand, and bow,
As leader seeks his mortal foe.
For love-lorn swain, in lady's bower,
Ne'er panted for the appointed hour,
As I, until before me stand
195 This rebel Chieftain and his band!"

"Have, then, thy wish!" He whistled shrill,
And he was answered from the hill;
Wild as the scream of the curlew,note
From crag to crag the signal flew.
200 Instant, through copse and heath, arose
Bonnets and spears and bended bows;
On right, on left, above, below,
Sprung up at once the lurking foe;
[Pg 192] From shingles gray their lances start,
205 The bracken bush sends forth the dart,
The rushes and the willow-wand
Are bristling into ax and brand,
And every tuft of broom gives life
To plaided warrior armed for strife.
210 That whistle garrisoned the glen
At once with full five hundred men,
As if the yawning hill to heaven
A subterranean host had given.
Watching their leader's beck and will,
215 All silent there they stood, and still.
Like the loose crags whose threatening mass
Lay tottering o'er the hollow pass,
As if an infant's touch could urge
Their headlong passage down the verge,
220 With step and weapon forward flung,
Upon the mountain-side they hung.
The Mountaineer cast glance of pride
Along Benledi's living side,
Then fixed his eye and sable brow
225 Full on Fitz-James—"How say'st thou now?
These are Clan-Alpine's warriors true;
And, Saxon—I am Roderick Dhu!"

Fitz-James was brave. Though to his heart
The life-blood thrilled with sudden start,
230 He manned himself with dauntless air,
Returned the Chief his haughty stare,
[Pg 193] His back against a rock he bore,
And firmly placed his foot before:
"Come one, come all! this rock shall fly
235 From its firm base as soon as I."
Sir Roderick marked—and in his eyes
Respect was mingled with surprise,
And the stern joy which warriors feel
In foemen worthy of their steel.
240 Short space he stood—then waved his hand;
Down sunk the disappearing band;
Each warrior vanished where he stood,
In broom or bracken, heath or wood;
Sunk brand and spear and bended bow,
245 In osiers pale and copses low;
It seemed as if their mother Earth
Had swallowed up her warlike birth.
The wind's last breath had tossed in air,
Pennon, and plaid, and plumage fair;
250 The next but swept a lone hill-side,
Where heath and fern were waving wide.
The sun's last glance was glinted back,
From spear and glaive, from targe and jack,note
The next, all unreflected, shone
255 On bracken green, and cold gray stone.

Fitz-James looked round—yet scarce believed
The witness that his sight received;
Such apparition well might seem
Delusion of a dreadful dream.
260 [Pg 194] Sir Roderick in suspense he eyed,
And to his look the Chief replied,
"Fear naught—nay, that I need not say—
But—doubt not aught from mine array.
Thou art my guest—I pledged my word
265 As far as Coilantogle ford;
Nor would I call a clansman's brand
For aid against one valiant hand,
Though on our strife lay every vale
Rent by the Saxon from the Gael.
270 So move we on—I only meant
To show the reed on which you leant,
Deeming this path you might pursue
Without a pass from Roderick Dhu."
They moved—I said Fitz-James was brave,
275 As ever knight that belted glaive;
Yet dare not say, that now his blood
Kept on its wont and tempered flood,
As, following Roderick's stride, he drew
That seeming lonesome pathway through,
280 Which yet, by fearful proof, was rife
With lances, that, to take his life,
Waited but signal from a guide,
So late dishonored and defied.
Ever, by stealth, his eye sought round
285 The vanished guardians of the ground,
And still, from copse and heather deep,
Fancy saw spear and broadsword peep,
And in the plover's shrilly strain,
The signal whistle heard again.
290 [Pg 195] Nor breathed he free till far behind
The pass was left; for then they wind
Along a wide and level green,
Where neither tree nor tuft was seen,
Nor rush nor bush of broom was near,
295 To hide a bonnet or a spear.

XII

The Chief in silence strode before,
And reached that torrent's sounding shore,
Which, daughter of three mighty lakes,
From Vennachar in silver breaks,
300 Sweeps through the plain, and ceaseless mines
On Bochastle the moldering lines,note
Where Rome, the Empress of the world,
Of yore her eagle wings unfurled.
And here his course the Chieftain stayed,
305 Threw down his target and his plaid,
And to the Lowland warrior said—
"Bold Saxon! to his promise just,
Vich-Alpine has discharged his trust.
This murderous Chief, this ruthless man,
310 This head of a rebellious clan,
Hath led thee safe, through watch and ward,
Far past Clan-Alpine's outmost guard.
Now, man to man, and steel to steel.
A Chieftain's vengeance thou shalt feel.
315 See, here, all vantageless I stand,
Armed, like thyself, with single brand;
[Pg 196] For this is Coilantogle ford,
And thou must keep thee with thy sword."

XIII

The Saxon paused: "I ne'er delayed,
320 When foeman bade me draw my blade;
Nay more, brave Chief, I vowed thy death;
Yet sure thy fair and generous faith,
And my deep debt for life preserved,
A better meed have well deserved.
325 Can naught but blood our feud atone?
Are there no means?" "No, Stranger, none!
And hear—to fire thy flagging zeal—
The Saxon cause rests on thy steel;
For thus spoke Fate, by prophet bred
330 Between the living and the dead;
'Who spills the foremost foeman's life,
His party conquers in the strife.'"
"Then, by my word," the Saxon said,
"The riddle is already read.
335 Seek yonder brake beneath the cliff—
There lies Red Murdoch, stark and stiff.
Thus Fate hath solved her prophecy,
Then yield to Fate, and not to me.
To James, at Stirling, let us go,
340 When, if thou wilt be still his foe,
Or if the King shall not agree
To grant thee grace and favor free,
I plight mine honor, oath, and word,
That, to thy native strengths restored,
345 [Pg 197] With each advantage shalt thou stand,
That aids thee now to guard thy land."

XIV

Dark lightning flashed from Roderick's eye—
"Soars thy presumption, then, so high,
Because a wretched kern ye slew,
350 Homage to name to Roderick Dhu?
He yields not, he, to man nor Fate!
Thou add'st but fuel to my hate;
My clansman's blood demands revenge.
Not yet prepared?—By heaven, I change
355 My thought, and hold thy valor light
As that of some vain carpet knight,
Who ill deserved my courteous care,
And whose best boast is but to wear
A braid of his fair lady's hair."
360 "I thank thee, Roderick, for the word!
It nerves my heart, it steels my sword;
For I have sworn this braid to stain
In the best blood that warms thy vein.
Now, truce, farewell! and ruth, begone!—
365 Yet think not that by thee alone,
Proud Chief! can courtesy be shown;
Though not from copse, or heath, or cairn,
Start at my whistle clansmen stern,
Of this small horn one feeble blast
370 Would fearful odds against thee cast.
But fear not—doubt not—which thou wilt—
We try this quarrel hilt to hilt."
[Pg 198] Then each at once his falchion drew,
Each on the ground his scabbard threw,
375 Each looked to sun, and stream, and plain,
As what they ne'er might see again;
Then foot, and point, and eye opposed,
In dubious strife they darkly closed.

Ill fared it then with Roderick Dhu,
380 That on the field his targe he threw,
Whose brazen studs and tough bull-hide
Had death so often dashed aside;
For, trained abroad his arms to wield,
Fitz-James's blade was sword and shield.
385 He practiced every pass and ward,
To thrust, to strike, to feint, to guard;
While less expert, though stronger far,
The Gael maintained unequal war.
Three times in closing strife they stood,
390 And thrice the Saxon blade drank blood;
No stinted draft, no scanty tide,
The gushing flood the tartans dyed.
Fierce Roderick felt the fatal drain,
And showered his blows like wintry rain;
395 And, as firm rock, or castle-roof,
Against the winter shower is proof,
The foe, invulnerable still,
Foiled his wild rage by steady skill;
[Pg 199] Till, at advantage ta'en, his brand
400 Forced Roderick's weapon from his hand,
And backward borne upon the lea,
Brought the proud Chieftain to his knee.

XVI

"Now, yield thee, or by Him who made
The world, thy heart's blood dyes my blade!"—
405 "Thy threats, thy mercy, I defy!
Let recreant yield, who fears to die."
—Like adder darting from his coil,
Like wolf that dashes through the toil,
Like mountain-cat who guards her young,note
410 Full at Fitz-James's throat he sprung;
Received, but recked not of a wound,
And locked his arms his foeman round.
Now, gallant Saxon, hold thine own!
No maiden's hand is round thee thrown!
415 That desperate grasp thy frame might feel,
Through bars of brass and triple steel!—
They tug, they strain! down, down they go,
The Gael above, Fitz-James below.
The Chieftain's gripe his throat compressed
420 His knee was planted in his breast;
His clotted locks he backward threw,
Across his brow his hand he drew,
From blood and mist to clear his sight,
Then gleamed aloft his dagger bright!
425 [Pg 200] But hate and fury ill supplied
The stream of life's exhausted tide,
And all too late the advantage came,
To turn the odds of deadly game;
For, while the dagger gleamed on high,
430 Reeled soul and sense, reeled brain and eye.
Down came the blow! but in the heath
The erring blade found bloodless sheath.
The struggling foe may now unclasp
The fainting Chief's relaxing grasp;
435 Unwounded from the dreadful close,
But breathless all, Fitz-James arose.

XVII

He faltered thanks to Heaven for life,
Redeemed, unhoped, from desperate strife;
Next on his foe his look he cast,
440 Whose every gasp appeared his last;
In Roderick's gore he dipped the braid—
"Poor Blanche! thy wrongs are dearly paid;
Yet with thy foe must die, or live,
The praise that faith and valor give."
445 With that he blew a bugle-note,
Undid the collar from his throat,
Unbonneted, and by the wave
Sat down his brow and hands to lave.
Then faint afar are heard the feet
450 Of rushing steeds in gallop fleet;
The sounds increase, and now are seen
Four mounted squires in Lincoln green;
[Pg 201] Two who bear lance, and two who lead,
By loosened rein, a saddled steed;
455 Each onward held his headlong course,
And by Fitz-James reined up his horse—
With wonder viewed the bloody spot—
"Exclaim not, gallants! question not.
You, Herbert and Luffness, alight,
460 And bind the wounds of yonder knight;
Let the gray palfrey bear his weight,note
We destined for a fairer freight,
And bring him on to Stirling straight;
I will before at better speed,
465 To seek fresh horse and fitting weed.note
The sun rides high—I must be boune,
To see the archer-game at noon;
But lightly Bayard clears the lea—
De Vaux and Herries, follow me.

XVIII

470 "Stand, Bayard, stand!" The steed obeyed,
With arching neck and bended head,
And glancing eye and quivering ear
As if he loved his lord to hear.
No foot Fitz-James in stirrup stayed,
475 No grasp upon the saddle laid,
But wreathed his left hand in the mane,
And lightly bounded from the plain,
Turned on the horse his arméd heel,
And stirred his courage with the steel.
480 [Pg 202] Bounded the fiery steed in air;
The rider sat erect and fair;
Then like a bolt from steel crossbow
Forth launched, along the plain they go.
They dashed that rapid torrent through,
485 And up Carhonie's hill they flew;
Still at the gallop pricked the Knight,
His merrymen followed as they might.
Along thy banks, swift Teith! they ride,
And in the race they mock thy tide;
490 Torry and Lendrick now are past,note
And Deanstown lies behind them cast;
They rise, the bannered towers of Doune,
They sink in distant woodland soon;
Blair-Drummond sees the hoofs strike fire,
495 They sweep like breeze through Ochtertyre;
They mark just glance and disappear
The lofty brow of ancient Kier;
They bathe their coursers' sweltering sides,
Dark Forth! amid thy sluggish tides,
500 And on the opposing shore take ground,
With plash, with scramble, and with bound.
Right-hand they leave thy cliffs, Craig-Forth!
And soon the bulwark of the North,
Gray Stirling, with her towers and town,
505 Upon their fleet career looked down.

XIX

As up the flinty path they strained
Sudden his steed the leader reined;
[Pg 203] A signal to his squire he flung,
Who instant to his stirrup sprung:
510 "Seest thou, De Vaux, yon woodsman gray,
Who townward holds the rocky way,
Of stature tall and poor array?
Mark'st thou the firm, yet active stride,
With which he scales the mountain-side?
515 Know'st thou from whence he comes, or whom?"
"No, by my word—a burly groom
He seems, who in the field or chase
A baron's train would nobly grace."
"Out, out, De Vaux! can fear supply,
520 And jealousy, no sharper eye?
Afar, ere to the hill he drew,
That stately form and step I knew;
Like form in Scotland is not seen,
Treads not such step on Scottish green.
525 'Tis James of Douglas, by Saint Serle!note
The uncle of the banished Earl.
Away, away, to court, to show
The near approach of dreaded foe;
The King must stand upon his guard;
530 Douglas and he must meet prepared."
Then righthand wheeled their steeds, and straight
They won the castle's postern gate.note

The Douglas, who had bent his way
From Cambus-Kenneth's abbey gray,
535 [Pg 204] Now, as he climbed the rocky shelf,
Held sad communion with himself:
"Yes! all is true my fears could frame;
A prisoner lies the noble Graeme,
And fiery Roderick soon will feel
540 The vengeance of the royal steel.
I, only I, can ward their fate—
God grant the ransom come not late!
The Abbess hath her promise given,
My child shall be the bride of heaven.
545 Be pardoned one repining tear!
For He, who gave her, knows how dear,
How excellent!—but that is by,
And now my business is—to die.
—Ye towers! within whose circuit dread
550 A Douglas by his sovereign bled;
And thou, O sad and fatal mound!
That oft hast heard the death-ax sound,
As on the noblest of the land
Fell the stern headsman's bloody hand—
555 The dungeon, block, and nameless tomb
Prepare—for Douglas seeks his doom!
—But hark! what blithe and jolly peal
Makes the Franciscan steeple reel?
And see! upon the crowded street,
560 In motley groups what maskers meet!
Banner and pageant, pipe and drum,
And merry morris dancers come.
I guess, by all this quaint array,
The burghers hold their sports today.
565 [Pg 205] James will be there; he loves such show,
Where the good yeoman bends his bow,
And the tough wrestler foils his foe,
As well as where, in proud career,
The high-born tilter shivers spear.
570 I'll follow to the Castle-park,
And play my prize—King James shall mark
If age has tamed these sinews stark,
Whose force so oft, in happier days,
His boyish wonder loved to praise."

XXI

575 The Castle gates were open flung,
The quivering drawbridge rocked and rung,
And echoed loud the flinty street
Beneath the coursers' clattering feet,
As slowly down the steep descent
580 Fair Scotland's King and nobles went,
While all along the crowded way
Was jubilee and loud huzza.
And ever James was bending low,
To his white jennet's saddle-bow,note
585 Doffing his cap to city dame,
Who smiled and blushed for pride and shame.
And well the simperer might be vain—
He chose the fairest of the train.
Gravely he greets each city sire,
590 Commends each pageant's quaint attire.
[Pg 206] Gives to the dancers thanks aloud,
And smiles and nods upon the crowd,
Who rend the heavens with their acclaims,
"Long live the Commons' King, King James!"
595 Behind the King thronged peer and knight,
And noble dame and damsel bright,
Whose fiery steeds ill brooked the stay
Of the steep street and crowded way.
But in the train you might discern
600 Dark lowering brow and visage stern;
There nobles mourned their pride restrained,
And the mean burgher's joys disdained;
And chiefs, who, hostage for their clan,
Were each from home a banished man,
605 There thought upon their own gray tower,
Their waving woods, their feudal power,
And deemed themselves a shameful part
Of pageant which they cursed in heart.

XXII

Now, in the Castle-park, drew out
610 Their checkered bands the joyous rout.
Their morricers, with bell at heel,note
And blade in hand, their mazes wheel;
And chief, beside the butts, there standnote
Bold Robin Hood and all his band—note
615 Friar Tuck with quarterstaff and cowl,
Old Scathelocke with his surly scowl,
[Pg 207] Maid Marion, fair as ivory bone,
Scarlet, and Mutch, and Little John;
Their bugles challenge all that will,
620 In archery to prove their skill.
The Douglas bent a bow of might—
His first shaft centered in the white,note
And when in turn he shot again,
His second split the first in twain.
625 From the King's hand must Douglas take
A silver dart, the archer's stake;
Fondly he watched, with watery eye,
Some answering glance of sympathy—
No kind emotion made reply!
630 Indifferent as to archer wight,
The monarch gave the arrow bright.

XXIII

Now, clear the ring! for, hand to hand,
The manly wrestlers take their stand.
Two o'er the rest superior rose,
635 And proud demanded mightier foes,
Nor called in vain; for Douglas came.
—For life is Hugh of Larbert lame;
Scarce better John of Alloa's fare,
Whom senseless home his comrades bear.
640 Prize of the wrestling match, the King
To Douglas gave a golden ring,
While coldly glanced his eye of blue,
As frozen drop of wintry dew.
[Pg 208] Douglas would speak, but in his breast
645 His struggling soul his words suppressed;
Indignant then he turned him where
Their arms the brawny yeomen bare.
To hurl the massive bar in air.
When each his utmost strength had shown,
650 The Douglas rent an earth-fast stone
From its deep bed, then heaved it high,
And sent the fragment through the sky,
A rood beyond the farthest mark;
And still in Stirling's royal park,
655 The gray-haired sires, who know the past,
To strangers point the Douglas-cast,
And moralize on the decay
Of Scottish strength in modern day.

XXIV

The vale with loud applauses rang,
660 The Ladies' Rock sent back the clang.note
The King, with look unmoved, bestowed
A purse well-filled with pieces broad.
Indignant smiled the Douglas proud,
And threw the gold among the crowd,
665 Who now, with anxious wonder, scan,
And sharper glance, the dark gray man;
Till whispers rose among the throng,
That heart so free, and hand so strong,
Must to the Douglas blood belong.
670 [Pg 209] The old men marked and shook the head,
To see his hair with silver spread,
And winked aside, and told each son,
Of feats upon the English done,
Ere Douglas of the stalwart hand
675 Was exiled from his native land.
The women praised his stately form,
Though wrecked by many a winter's storm;
The youth with awe and wonder saw
His strength surpassing Nature's law.
680 Thus judged, as is their wont, the crowd,
Till murmur rose to clamors loud.
But not a glance from that proud ring
Of peers who circled round the King,
With Douglas held communion kind,
685 Or called the banished man to mind;
No, not from those who, at the chase,
Once held his side the honored place,
Begirt his board, and, in the field,
Found safety underneath his shield;
690 For he, whom royal eyes disown,
When was his form to courtiers known!

XXV

The Monarch saw the gambols flag,
And bade let loose a gallant stag,
Whose pride, the holiday to crown,
695 Two favorite greyhounds should pull down,
[Pg 210] That venison free, and Bordeaux wine,
Might serve the archery to dine.
But Lufra—whom from Douglas' side
Nor bribe nor threat could e'er divide,
700 The fleetest hound in all the North—
Brave Lufra saw and darted forth.
She left the royal hounds mid-way,
And dashing on the antlered prey,
Sunk her sharp muzzle in his flank,
705 And deep the flowing life-blood drank.
The King's stout huntsman saw the sport
By strange intruder broken short,
Came up, and with his leash unbound,
In anger struck the noble hound.
710 The Douglas had endured, that morn,
The King's cold look, the nobles' scorn,
And last, and worst to spirit proud,
Had borne the pity of the crowd;
But Lufra had been fondly bred,
715 To share his board, to watch his bed,
And oft would Ellen, Lufra's neck
In maiden glee with garlands deck;
They were such playmates, that with name
Of Lufra, Ellen's image came.
720 His stifled wrath is brimming high,
In darkened brow and flashing eye;
As waves before the bark divide,
The crowd gave way before his stride;
Needs but a buffet and no more,
725 The groom lies senseless in his gore.
[Pg 211] Such blow no other hand could deal,
Though gauntleted in glove of steel.

XXVI

Then clamored loud the royal train,
And brandished swords and staves amain,
730 But stern the Baron's warning—"Back!
Back, on your lives, ye menial pack!
Beware the Douglas.—Yes! behold,
King James! the Douglas, doomed of old,
And vainly sought for near and far,
735 A victim to atone the war,
A willing victim, now attends,
Nor craves thy grace but for his friends."
"Thus is my clemency repaid?
Presumptuous Lord!" the monarch said;
740 "Of thy misproud ambitious clan,
Thou, James of Bothwell, wert the man,
The only man, in whom a foe
My woman-mercy would not know:
But shall a Monarch's presence brook
745 Injurious blow, and haughty look?
What ho! the Captain of our Guard!
Give the offender fitting ward.
Break off the sports!"—for tumult rose,
And yeomen 'gan to bend their bows—
750 "Break off the sports!" he said, and frowned,
"And bid our horsemen clear the ground."

[Pg 212] XXVII

Then uproar wild and misarray
Marred the fair form of festal day.
The horsemen pricked among the crowd,
755 Repelled by threats and insult loud;
To earth are borne the old and weak,
The timorous fly, the women shriek;
With flint, with shaft, with staff, with bar,
The hardier urge tumultuous war.
760 At once round Douglas darkly sweep
The royal spears in circle deep,
And slowly scale the pathway steep;
While on the rear in thunder pour
The rabble with disordered roar.
765 With grief the noble Douglas saw
The Commons rise against the law,
And to the leading soldier said—
"Sir John of Hyndford! 'twas my blade,
That knighthood on thy shoulder laid;
770 For that good deed, permit me then
A word with these misguided men.

XXVIII

"Hear, gentle friends! ere yet for me,
Ye break the bands of fealty.
My life, my honor, and my cause,
775 I tender free to Scotland's laws.
Are these so weak as must require
The aid of your misguided ire?
[Pg 213] Or, if I suffer causeless wrong,
Is then my selfish rage so strong,
780 My sense of public weal so low,
That, for mean vengeance on a foe,
Those cords of love I should unbind,
Which knit my country and my kind?
O no! Believe, in yonder tower
785 It will not soothe my captive hour,
To know those spears our foes should dread,
For me in kindred gore are red;
To know, in fruitless brawl begun,
For me, that mother wails her son;
790 For me, that widow's mate expires;
For me, that orphans weep their sires;
That patriots mourn insulted laws,
And curse the Douglas for the cause.
O let your patience ward such ill,
795 And keep your right to love me still!"

XXIX

The crowd's wild fury sunk again
In tears, as tempests melt in rain.
With lifted hands and eyes, they prayed
For blessings on his generous head,
800 Who for his country felt alone,
And prized her blood beyond his own.
Old men, upon the verge of life,
Blessed him who stayed the civil strife;
[Pg 214] And mothers held their babes on high,
805 The self-devoted Chief to spy,
Triumphant over wrongs and ire,
To whom the prattlers owed a sire.
Even the rough soldier's heart was moved;
As if behind some bier beloved,
810 With trailing arms and drooping head,
The Douglas up the hill he led,
And at the Castle's battled verge,
With sighs resigned his honored charge.

XXX

The offended Monarch rode apart,
815 With bitter thought and swelling heart,
And would not now vouchsafe again
Through Stirling streets to lead his train.
"O Lennox, who would wish to rule
This changeling crowd, this common fool?
820 Hear'st thou," he said, "the loud acclaim,
With which they shout the Douglas name?
With like acclaim, the vulgar throat
Strained for King James their morning note;
With like acclaim they hailed the day
825 When first I broke the Douglas' sway;
And like acclaim would Douglas greet,
If he could hurl me from my seat.
Who o'er the herd would wish to reign,
Fantastic, fickle, fierce, and vain!
830 [Pg 215] Vain as the leaf upon the stream,
And fickle as a changeful dream;
Fantastic as a woman's mood,
And fierce as Frenzy's fevered blood.
Thou many-headed monster-thing,
835 O who could wish to be thy king!

XXXI

"But soft! what messenger of speed
Spurs hitherward his panting steed?
I guess his cognizance afar—
What from our cousin, John of Mar?"—
840 "He prays, my liege, your sports keep bound
Within the safe and guarded ground;
For some foul purpose yet unknown—
Most sure for evil to the throne—
The outlawed Chieftain, Roderick Dhu,
845 Has summoned his rebellious crew;
'Tis said, in James of Bothwell's aid
These loose banditti stand arrayed.
The Earl of Mar, this morn, from Doune,
To break their muster marched, and soon
850 Your Grace will hear of battle fought;
But earnestly the Earl besought,
Till for such danger he provide,
With scanty train you will not ride."

XXXII

"Thou warn'st me I have done amiss—
855 I should have earlier looked to this;
[Pg 216] I lost it in this bustling day.
Retrace with speed thy former way;
Spare not for spoiling of thy steed
The best of mine shall be thy meed.
860 Say to our faithful Lord of Mar,
We do forbid the intended war.
Roderick, this morn, in single fight,
Was made our prisoner by a knight;
And Douglas hath himself and cause
865 Submitted to our kingdom's laws.
The tidings of their leaders lost
Will soon dissolve the mountain host,
Nor would we that the vulgar feel
For their Chief's crimes, avenging steel.
870 Bear Mar our message, Braco; fly!"
He turned his steed—"My liege, I hie,
Yet, ere I cross this lily lawn,note
I fear the broadswords will be drawn."
The turf the flying courser spurned,
875 And to his towers the King returned.

XXXIII

Ill with King James's mood that day,
Suited gay feast and minstrel lay;
Soon were dismissed the courtly throng,
And soon cut short the festal song.
880 Nor less upon the saddened town
The evening sunk in sorrow down.
[Pg 217] The burghers spoke of civil jar,
Of rumored feuds and mountain war,
Of Moray, Mar, and Roderick Dhu,
885 All up in arms—The Douglas too,
They mourned him pent within the hold,
"Where stout Earl William was of old."
And there his word the speaker stayed,
And finger on his lip he laid,
890 Or pointed to his dagger blade.
But jaded horsemen, from the west,
At evening to the Castle pressed;
And busy talkers said they bore
Tidings of fight on Katrine's shore;
895 At noon the deadly fray begun,
And lasted till the set of sun.
Thus giddy rumor shook the town,
Till closed the Night her pennons brown.

[Pg 218] CANTO SIXTH

THE GUARD-ROOM

The sun, awakening, through the smoky air
Of the dark city casts a sullen glance,
Rousing each caitiff to his task of care,
Of sinful man the sad inheritance;
5 Summoning revelers from the lagging dance,
Scaring the prowling robber to his den;
Gilding on battled tower the warder's lance,
And warning student pale to leave his pen,
And yield his drowsy eyes to the kind nurse of men.

10 What various scenes, and, Oh! what scenes of woe,
Are witnessed by that red and struggling beam!
The fevered patient, from his pallet low,
Through crowded hospital beholds its stream;
The ruined maiden trembles at its gleam;
15 The debtor wakes to thought of gyve and jail;
The love-lorn wretch starts from tormenting dream;
The wakeful mother, by the glimmering pale,
Trims her sick infant's couch, and soothes his feeble wail.

[Pg 219] II

At dawn the towers of Stirling rang
20 With soldier-step and weapon-clang,
While drums, with rolling note, foretell
Relief to weary sentinel.
Through narrow loop and casement barred,
The sunbeams sought the Court of Guard,
25 And, struggling with the smoky air,
Deadened the torches' yellow glare.
In comfortless alliance shone
The lights through arch of blackened stone,
And showed wild shapes in garb of war,
30 Faces deformed with beard and scar,
All haggard from the midnight watch,
And fevered with the stern debauch;
For the oak table's massive board,
Flooded with wine, with fragments stored,
35 And beakers drained, and cups o'erthrown,
Showed in what sport the night had flown.
Some, weary, snored on floor and bench;
Some labored still their thirst to quench;
Some, chilled with watching, spread their hands
40 O'er the huge chimney's dying brands,
While round them, or beside them flung,
At every step their harness rung.note

III

These drew not for their fields the sword,
Like tenants of a feudal lord,
45 [Pg 220] Nor owned the patriarchal claim
Of Chieftain in their leader's name;
Adventurers they, from far who roved,
To live by battle which they loved.
There the Italian's clouded face,
50 The swarthy Spaniard's there you trace;
The mountain-loving Switzer there
More freely breathed in mountain-air;
The Fleming there despised the soil,
That paid so ill the laborer's toil;
55 Their rolls showed French and German name;
And merry England's exiles came,
To share, with ill-concealed disdain,
Of Scotland's pay the scanty gain.
All brave in arms, well trained to wield
60 The heavy halberd, brand, and shield;note
In camps licentious, wild and bold;
In pillage fierce and uncontrolled;
And now, by holytide and feast,
From rules of discipline released.

65 They held debate of bloody fray,
Fought 'twixt Loch Katrine and Achray.
Fierce was their speech, and, mid their words,
Their hands oft grappled to their swords;
Nor sunk their tone to spare the ear
70 Of wounded comrades groaning near,
[Pg 221] Whose mangled limbs, and bodies gored,
Bore token of the mountain sword,
Though, neighboring to the Court of Guard,
Their prayers and feverish wails were heard;
75 Sad burden to the ruffian joke,
And savage oath by fury spoke!—
At length up-started John of Brent,
A yeoman from the banks of Trent;
A stranger to respect or fear,
80 In peace a chaser of the deer,
In host a hardy mutineer,
But still the boldest of the crew,
When deed of danger was to do.
He grieved, that day, their games cut short,
85 And marred the dicer's brawling sport,
And shouted loud, "Renew the bowl!
And, while in merry catch I troll,
Let each the buxom chorus bear,
Like brethren of the brand and spear."

V

SOLDIER'S SONG

90 Our vicar still preaches that Peter and Poule
Laid a swinging long curse on the bonny brown bowl,
That there's wrath and despair in the jolly black-jack,note
And the seven deadly sins in a flagon of sack;
[Pg 222] Yet whoop, Barnaby! off with thy liquor,
95 Drink upsees out, and a fig for the vicar!note

Our vicar he calls it damnation to sip
The ripe ruddy dew of a woman's dear lip,
Says, that Beelzebub lurks in her kerchief so sly,
And Apollyon shoots darts from her merry black eye;
100 Yet whoop, Jack! kiss Gillian the quicker,
Till she bloom like a rose, and a fig for the vicar!

Our vicar thus preaches—and why should he not?
For the dues of his cure are the placket and pot;note
And 'tis right of his office poor laymen to lurch,note
105 Who infringe the domains of our good Mother Church.
Yet whoop, bully-boys! off with your liquor,
Sweet Marjorie's the word, and a fig for the Vicar!

The warder's challenge, heard without,
Stayed in mid-roar the merry shout.
110 A soldier to the portal went—
"Here is old Bertram, sirs, of Ghent;
And—beat for jubilee the drum!
A maid and minstrel with him come."
Bertram, a Fleming, gray and scarred,
115 Was entering now the Court of Guard,
A harper with him, and in plaid
All muffled close, a mountain maid,
[Pg 223] Who backward shrunk, to 'scape the view
Of the loose scene and boisterous crew.
120 "What news?" they roared. "I only know,
From noon till eve we fought with foe,
As wild and as untamable
As the rude mountains where they dwell;
On both sides store of blood is lost,
125 Nor much success can either boast."
"But whence thy captives, friend? Such spoil
As theirs must needs reward thy toil.
Old dost thou wax, and wars grow sharp;
Thou now hast glee-maiden and harp!
130 Get thee an ape, and trudge the land,
The leader of a juggler band."

VII

"No, comrade; no such fortune mine.
After the fight these sought our line,
That aged harper and the girl,
135 And, having audience of the Earl,
Mar bade I should purvey them steed,
And bring them hitherward with speed.
Forbear your mirth and rude alarm,
For none shall do them shame or harm."
140 "Hear ye his boast?" cried John of Brent,
Ever to strife and jangling bent;
"Shall he strike doe beside our lodge,
And yet the jealous niggard grudge
To pay the forester his fee?
145 [Pg 224] I'll have my share, howe'er it be,
Despite of Moray, Mar, or thee."
Bertram his forward step withstood;
And, burning in his vengeful mood,
Old Allan, though unfit for strife;
150 Laid hand upon his dagger-knife;
But Ellen boldly stepped between,
And dropped at once the tartan screen.
So, from his morning cloud, appears
The sun of May, through summer tears.
155 The savage soldiery, amazed,
As on descended angel gazed;
Even hardy Brent, abashed and tamed,
Stood half admiring, half ashamed.

VIII

Boldly she spoke—"Soldiers, attend!
160 My father was the soldier's friend;
Cheered him in camps, in marches led,
And with him in the battle bled.
Not from the valiant, or the strong,
Should exile's daughter suffer wrong."
165 Answered De Brent, most forward still
In every feat of good or ill:
"I shame me of the part I played;
And thou an outlaw's child, poor maid!
An outlaw I by forest laws,
170 And merry Needwood knows the cause.
[Pg 225] Poor Rose—if Rose be living now"—
He wiped his iron eye and brow—
"Must bear such age, I think, as thou.
Hear ye, my mates; I go to call
175 The Captain of our watch to hall.
There lies my halberd on the floor;
And he that steps my halberd o'er,
To do the maid injurious part,
My shaft shall quiver in his heart!
180 Beware loose speech, or jesting rough;
Ye all know John de Brent. Enough."

Their Captain came, a gallant young—
Of Tullibardine's house he sprung—
Nor wore he yet the spurs of knight;
185 Gay was his mien, his humor light,
And, though by courtesy controlled,
Forward his speech, his bearing bold.
The high-born maiden ill could brook
The scanning of his curious look
190 And dauntless eye; and yet, in sooth,
Young Lewis was a generous youth;
But Ellen's lovely face and mien,
Ill suited to the garb and scene,
Might lightly bear construction strange,
195 And give loose fancy scope to range.
"Welcome to Stirling towers, fair maid!
Come ye to seek a champion's aid,
[Pg 226] On palfrey white, with harper hoar,
Like errant damosel of yore?
200 Does thy high quest a knight require,
Or may the venture suit a squire?"
Her dark eye flashed—she paused and sighed—
"O what have I to do with pride!
Through scenes of sorrow, shame, and strife,
205 A suppliant for a father's life,
I crave an audience of the King.
Behold, to back my suit, a ring,
The royal pledge of grateful claims,
Given by the Monarch to Fitz-James."

210 The signet ring young Lewis took,
With deep respect and altered look;
And said—"This ring our duties own;
And pardon, if to worth unknown,
In semblance mean obscurely veiled,
215 Lady, in aught my folly failed.
Soon as the day flings wide his gates,
The King shall know what suitor waits.
Please you, meanwhile, in fitting bower
Repose you till his waking hour;
220 Female attendance shall obey
Your hest, for service or array.
Permit I marshal you the way."
But, ere she followed, with the grace
And open bounty of her race,
225 [Pg 227] She bade her slender purse be shared
Among the soldiers of the guard.
The rest with thanks their guerdon took;
But Brent, with shy and awkward look,
On the reluctant maiden's hold
230 Forced bluntly back the proffered gold:
"Forgive a haughty English heart,
And O forget its ruder part!
The vacant purse shall be my share,
Which in my barret-cap I'll bear.
235 Perchance, in jeopardy of war,
Where gayer crests may keep afar."
With thanks—'twas all she could—the maid
His rugged courtesy repaid.

When Ellen forth with Lewis went,
240 Allan made suit to John of Brent:
"My lady safe, O let your grace
Give me to see my master's face!
His minstrel I—to share his doom
Bound from the cradle to the tomb.
245 Tenth in descent, since first my sires
Waked for his noble house their lyres,
Nor one of all the race was known
But prized its weal above their own.
With the Chief's birth begins our care;
250 Our harp must soothe the infant heir,
Teach the youth tales of fight, and grace
[Pg 228] His earliest feat of field or chase;
In peace, in war, our ranks we keep,
We cheer his board, we soothe his sleep,
255 Nor leave him till we pour our verse—
A doleful tribute!—o'er his hearse.
Then let me share his captive lot;
It is my right—deny it not!"
"Little we reck," said John of Brent,
260 "We Southern men, of long descent;
Nor wot we how a name—a word—
Makes clansmen vassals to a lord;
Yet kind my noble landlord's part—
God bless the house of Beaudesert!
265 And, but I loved to drive the deer,
More than to guide the laboring steer,
I had not dwelt an outcast here.
Come, good old Minstrel, follow me;
Thy Lord and Chieftain shalt thou see."

XII

270 Then, from a rusted iron hook,
A bunch of ponderous keys he took,
Lighted a torch, and Allan led
Through grated arch and passage dread.
Portals they passed, where, deep within,
275 Spoke prisoner's moan, and fetters' din;
Through rugged vaults, where, loosely stored,
Lay wheel, and ax, and headsman's sword,
And many an hideous engine grim,
For wrenching joint, and crushing limb,
280 [Pg 229] By artist formed, who deemed it shame
And sin to give their work a name.
They halted at a low-browed porch,
And Brent to Allan gave the torch,
While bolt and chain he backward rolled
285 And made the bar unhasp its hold.
They entered—'twas a prison-room
Of stern security and gloom,
Yet not a dungeon; for the day
Through lofty gratings found its way,
290 And rude and antique garniture
Decked the sad walls and oaken floor;
Such as the rugged days of old
Deemed fit for captive noble's hold.
"Here," said De Brent, "thou mayst remain
295 Till the Leech visit him again.
Strict is his charge, the warders tell,
To tend the noble prisoner well."
Retiring then the bolt he drew,
And the lock's murmurings growled anew.
300 Roused at the sound, from lowly bed
A captive feebly raised his head;
The wondering Minstrel looked, and knew—
Not his dear lord, but Roderick Dhu!
For, come from where Clan-Alpine fought,
305 They, erring, deemed the Chief he sought.

XIII

As the tall ship, whose lofty prorenote
Shall never stem the billows more,
[Pg 230] Deserted by her gallant band,
Amid the breakers lies astrand,
310 So, on his couch, lay Roderick Dhu!
And oft his fevered limbs he threw
In toss abrupt, as when her sides
Lie rocking in the advancing tides,
That shake her frame with ceaseless beat,
315 Yet cannot heave her from her seat—
Oh! how unlike her course at sea!
Or his free step on hill and lea!
Soon as the Minstrel he could scan,
"What of thy lady?—of my clan?—
320 My mother?—Douglas?—tell me all?
Have they been ruined in my fall?
Ah, yes! or wherefore art thou here!
Yet speak—speak boldly—do not fear."
For Allan, who his mood well knew,
325 Was choked with grief and terror too.
"Who fought—who fled?—Old man, be brief—
Some might—for they had lost their Chief.
Who basely live?—who bravely died?"
"O calm thee, Chief!" the Minstrel cried,
330 "Ellen is safe;" "For that thank Heaven!"
"And hopes are for the Douglas given;
The Lady Margaret too is well;
And, for thy clan—on field or fell,
Has never harp of minstrel told,
335 Of combat fought so true and bold.
Thy stately Pine is yet unbent,
Though many a goodly bough is rent."

[Pg 231] XIV

The Chieftain reared his form on high,
And fever's fire was in his eye;
340 But ghastly pale, and livid streaks
Checkered his swarthy brow and cheeks.
"Hark, Minstrel! I have heard thee play,
With measure bold, on festal day,
In yon lone isle, ... again where ne'er
345 Shall harper play, or warrior hear!...
That stirring air that peals on high,
O'er Dermid's race our victory.
Strike it!—and then—for well thou canst—
Free from thy minstrel spirit glanced,
350 Fling me the picture of the fight,
When met my clan the Saxon might.
I'll listen, till my fancy hears
The clang of swords, the crash of spears!
These grates, these walls, shall vanish then,
355 For the fair field of fighting men,
And my free spirit burst away,
As if it soared from battle fray."
The trembling Bard with awe obeyed—
Slow on the harp his hand he laid;
360 But soon remembrance of the sight
He witnessed from the mountain's height,
With what old Bertram told at night,
Awakened the full power of song,
And bore him in career along;
365 [Pg 232] As shallop launched on river's side,
That slow and fearful leaves the side,
But, when it feels the middle stream,
Drives downward swift as lightning's beam.

XV

BATTLE OF BEAL' AN DUINE

"The Minstrel came once more to view
370 The eastern ridge of Benvenue,
For ere he parted, he would say
Farewell to lovely Loch Achray—
Where shall he find in foreign land,
So lone a lake, so sweet a strand!
375 There is no breeze upon the fern,
Nor ripple on the lake,
Upon her eyry nods the erne,note
The deer has sought the brake;
The small birds will not sing aloud,
380 The springing trout lies still,
So darkly glooms yon thunder cloud,
That swathes, as with a purple shroud,
Benledi's distant hill.
Is it the thunder's solemn sound
385 That mutters deep and dread,
Or echoes from the groaning ground
The warrior's measured tread?
Is it the lightning's quivering glance
That on the thicket streams,
390 Or do they flash on spear and lance
[Pg 233] The sun's retiring beams?
—I see the dagger-crest of Mar,
I see the Moray's silver star,
Wave o'er the cloud of Saxon war,
395 That up the lake comes winding far!
To hero boune for battle-strife,
Or bard of martial lay,
'Twere worth ten years of peaceful life,
One glance at their array!

XVI

400 "Their light-armed archers far and near
Surveyed the tangled ground,
Their center ranks, with pike and spear,
A twilight forest frowned,
Their barded horsemen, in the rear,
405 The stern battalia crowned.
No cymbal clashed, no clarion rang,
Still were the pipe and drum;
Save heavy tread, and armor's clang,
The sullen march was dumb.
410 There breathed no wind their crests to shake,
Or wave their flags abroad;
Scarce the frail aspen seemed to quake,
That shadowed o'er their road.
Their vaward scouts no tidings bring,
415 Can rouse no lurking foe,
Nor spy a trace of living thing,
Save when they stirred the roe;
[Pg 234] The host moves, like a deep-sea wave,
Where rise no rocks its pride to brave,
420 High-swelling, dark, and slow.
The lake is passed, and now they gain
A narrow and a broken plain,
Before the Trossachs' rugged jaws;
And here the horse and spearmen pause,
425 While, to explore the dangerous glen,
Dive through the pass the archer-men.

XVII

"At once there rose so wild a yellnote
Within that dark and narrow dell,
As all the fiends, from heaven that fell,
430 Had pealed the banner-cry of hell!
Forth from the pass in tumult driven,
Like chaff before the wind of heaven,
The archery appear;
For life! for life! their flight they ply—
435 And shriek, and shout, and battle-cry,
And plaids and bonnets waving high,
And broadswords flashing to the sky,
Are maddening in the rear.
Onward they drive, in dreadful race,
440 Pursuers and pursued;
Before that tide of flight and chase,
How shall it keep its rooted place,
The spearmen's twilight wood?
[Pg 235] 'Down, down,' cried Mar, 'your lances down!
445 Bear back both friend and foe!'
Like reeds before the tempest's frown,
That serried grove of lances brown
At once lay leveled low;
And closely shouldering side to side,
450 The bristling ranks the onset bide.
'We'll quell the savage mountaineer,
As their Tinchel cows the game!note
They come as fleet as forest deer,
We'll drive them back as tame.'

XVIII

455 "Bearing before them, in their course,
The relics of the archer force,
Like wave with crest of sparkling foam,
Right onward did Clan-Alpine come.
Above the tide, each broadsword bright
460 Was brandishing like beam of light,
Each targe was dark below;
And with the ocean's mighty swing,
When heaving to the tempest's wing,
They hurled them on the foe.
465 I heard the lance's shivering crash,
As when the whirlwind rends the ash;
I heard the broadsword's deadly clang,
As if an hundred anvils rang!
But Moray wheeled his rearward rank
470 [Pg 236] Of horsemen on Clan-Alpine's flank,
'My banner-man advance!
I see,' he cried, 'their column shake.
Now, gallants! for your ladies' sake,
Upon them with the lance!'
475 The horsemen dashed among the rout,
As deer break through the broom;
Their steeds are stout, their swords are out,
They soon make lightsome room.
Clan-Alpine's best are backward borne—
480 Where, where was Roderick then!
One blast upon his bugle-horn
Were worth a thousand men.
And refluent through the pass of fear
The battle's tide was poured;
485 Vanished the Saxon's struggling spear,
Vanished the mountain-sword.
As Bracklinn's chasm, so black and steep,
Receives her roaring linn,note
As the dark caverns of the deep
490 Suck the wild whirlpool in,
So did the deep and darksome pass
Devour the battle's mingled mass;
None linger now upon the plain,
Save those who ne'er shall fight again.

XIX

495 "Now westward rolls the battle's din,
[Pg 237] That deep and doubling pass within.—
Minstrel, away! the work of fate
Is bearing on; its issue wait,
Where the rude Trossachs' dread defile
500 Opens on Katrine's lake and isle.—
Gray Benvenue I soon repassed,
Loch Katrine lay beneath me cast.
The sun is set, the clouds are met,
The lowering scowl of heaven
505 An inky hue of livid blue
To the deep lake has given;
Strange gusts of wind from mountain-glen
Swept o'er the lake, then sunk again.
I heeded not the eddying surge,
510 Mine eye but saw the Trossachs' gorge,
Mine ear but heard the sullen sound,
Which like an earthquake shook the ground,
And spoke the stern and desperate strife
That parts not but with parting life,
515 Seeming, to minstrel ear, to toll
The dirge of many a passing soul.
Nearer it comes—the dim-wood glen
The martial flood disgorged again,
But not in mingled tide;
520 The plaided warriors of the North
High on the mountain thunder forth
And overhang its side;
While by the lake below appears
The dark'ning cloud of Saxon spears.
525 At weary bay each shattered band,
Eyeing their foemen, sternly stand;
[Pg 238] Their banners stream like tattered sail,
That flings its fragments to the gale,
And broken arms and disarray
530 Marked the fell havoc of the day.

"Viewing the mountain's ridge askance,
The Saxon stood in sullen trance,
Till Moray pointed with his lance,
And cried—'Behold yon isle!
535 See! none are left to guard its strand,
But women weak, that wring the hand;
'Tis there of yore the robber band
Their booty wont to pile.
My purse, with bonnet-pieces store,
540 To him will swim a bow-shot o'er,
And loose a shallop from the shore.
Lightly we'll tame the war-wolf then,
Lords of his mate, and brood, and den.'
Forth from the ranks a spearman sprung,
545 On earth his casque and corselet rung,
He plunged him in the wave;
All saw the deed—the purpose knew,
And to their clamors Benvenue
A mingled echo gave;
550 The Saxons shout, their mate to cheer,
The helpless females scream for fear,
And yells for rage the mountaineer.
[Pg 239] 'Twas then, as by the outcry riven,
Poured down at once the lowering heaven;
555 A whirlwind swept Loch Katrine's breast,
Her billows reared their snowy crest.
Well for the swimmer swelled they high,
To mar the Highland marksman's eye;
For round him showered, 'mid rain and hail,
560 The vengeful arrows of the Gael.
In vain—he nears the isle—and lo!
His hand is on a shallop's bow.
Just then a flash of lightning came,
It tinged the waves and strand with flame;
565 I marked Duncraggan's widowed dame,
Behind an oak I saw her stand,
A naked dirk gleamed in her hand;
It darkened—but, amid the moan
Of waves, I heard a dying groan;
570 Another flash!—the spearman floats
A weltering corse beside the boats,
And the stern matron o'er him stood,
Her hand and dagger streaming blood.

XXI

"'Revenge! revenge!' the Saxons cried;
575 The Gaels' exulting shout replied.
Despite the elemental rage,
Again they hurried to engage;
But, ere they closed in desperate fight,
[Pg 240] Bloody with spurring came a knight,
580 Sprung from his horse, and, from a crag,
Waved 'twixt the hosts a milk-white flag.
Clarion and trumpet by his side
Rung forth a truce-note high and wide,
While, in the Monarch's name, afar
585 An herald's voice forbade the war,
For Bothwell's lord, and Roderick bold,note
Were both, he said, in captive hold."
—But here the lay made sudden stand,
The harp escaped the Minstrel's hand!—
590 Oft had he stolen a glance, to spy
How Roderick brooked his minstrelsy:note
At first, the Chieftain, to the chime,
With lifted hand, kept feeble time;
That motion ceased—yet feeling strong
595 Varied his look as changed the song;
At length, no more his deafened ear
The minstrel melody can hear;
His face grows sharp—his hands are clenched,
As if some pang his heart-strings wrenched;
600 Set are his teeth, his fading eye
Is sternly fixed on vacancy;
Thus, motionless, and moanless, drew
His parting breath, stout Roderick Dhu!
Old Allan-bane looked on aghast,
605 While grim and still his spirit passed;
But when he saw that life was fled,
He poured his wailing o'er the dead.

[Pg 241] XXII

LAMENT

"And art thou cold and lowly laid,
Thy foeman's dread, thy people's aid,
610 Breadalbane's boast, Clan-Alpine's shade!
For thee shall none a requiem say?
—For thee—who loved the minstrel's lay,
For thee, of Bothwell's house the stay,
The shelter of her exiled line,
615 E'en in this prison-house of thine
I'll wail for Alpine's honored Pine!

"What groans shall yonder valleys fill!
What shrieks of grief shall rend yon hill!
What tears of burning rage shall thrill,
620 When mourns thy tribe thy battles done,
Thy fall before the race was won,
Thy sword ungirt ere set of sun!
There breathes not clansman of thy line,
But would have given his life for thine.
625 O woe for Alpine's honored Pine!

"Sad was thy lot on mortal stage!
The captive thrush may brook the cage,
The prisoned eagle dies for rage.
Brave spirit, do not scorn my strain!
630 And, when its notes awake again,
Even she, so long beloved in vain,
Shall with my harp her voice combine,
[Pg 242] And mix her woe and tears with mine,
To wail Clan-Alpine's honored Pine."

XXIII

635 Ellen, the while, with bursting heart,
Remained in lordly bower apart,
Where played, with many colored gleams,
Through storied pane the rising beams.
In vain on gilded roof they fall,
640 And lightened up a tapestried wall,
And for her use a menial train
A rich collation spread in vain.
The banquet proud, the chamber gay,
Scarce drew one curious glance astray;
645 Or if she looked, 'twas but to say,
With better omen dawned the day
In that lone isle where waved on high
The dun-deer's hide for canopy;
Where oft her noble father shared
650 The simple meal her care prepared,
While Lufra, crouching by her side,
Her station claimed with jealous pride,
And Douglas, bent on woodland game,
Spoke of the chase to Malcolm Graeme,
655 Whose answer, oft at random made,
The wandering of his thoughts betrayed.
Those who such simple joys have known,
Are taught to prize them when they're gone.
But sudden, see, she lifts her head!
660 [Pg 243] The window seeks with cautious tread.
What distant music has the power
To win her in this woeful hour!
Twas from a turret that o'erhung
Her latticed bower, the strain was sung.

XXIV

LAY OF THE IMPRISONED HUNTSMAN

665 "My hawk is tired of perch and hood,
My idle greyhound loathes his food,
My horse is weary of his stall,
And I am sick of captive thrall.
I wish I were as I have been,
670 Hunting the hart in forest green,
With bended bow and bloodhound free,
For that's the life is meet for me.

"I hate to learn the ebb of time,
From yon dull steeple's drowsy chime,
675 Or mark it as the sunbeams crawl,
Inch after inch, along the wall.
The lark was wont my matins ring,
The sable rook my vespers sing;
These towers, although a king's they be,
680 Have not a hall of joy for me.

"No more at dawning morn I rise,
And sun myself in Ellen's eyes,
Drive the fleet deer the forest through,
And homeward wend with evening dew;
685 [Pg 244] A blithesome welcome blithely meet,
And lay my trophies at her feet,
While fled the eve on wing of glee—
That life is lost to love and me!"

XXV

The heartsick lay was hardly said,
690 The list'ner had not turned her head,
It trickled still, the starting tear,
When light a footstep struck her ear,
And Snowdoun's graceful knight was near.
She turned the hastier, lest again
695 The prisoner should renew his strain.
"O welcome, brave Fitz-James!" she said;
"How may an almost orphan maid
Pay the deep debt"—"O say not so!
To me no gratitude you owe.
700 Not mine, alas! the boon to give,
And bid thy noble father live;
I can but be thy guide, sweet maid,
With Scotland's King thy suit to aid.
No tyrant he, though ire and pride
705 May lay his better mood aside.
Come, Ellen, come! 'tis more than time,
He holds his court at morning prime."
With beating heart, and bosom wrung,
As to a brother's arm she clung.
710 Gently he dried the falling tear,
And gently whispered hope and cheer;
[Pg 245] Her faltering steps, half led, half stayed,
Through gallery fair, and high arcade,
Till, at his touch, its wings of pride
715 A portal arch unfolded wide.

XXVI

Within 'twas brilliant all and light,
A thronging scene of figures bright;
It glowed on Ellen's dazzled sight,
As when the setting sun has given
720 Ten thousand hues to summer even,
And from their tissue, fancy frames
Aërial knights and fairy dames.
Still by Fitz-James her footing stayed;
A few faint steps she forward made,
725 Then slow her drooping head she raised,
And fearful round the presence gazed;
For him she sought, who owned this state,
The dreaded Prince whose will was fate!—
She gazed on many a princely port,
730 Might well have ruled a royal court;
On many a splendid garb she gazed—
Then turned bewildered and amazed,
For all stood bare; and, in the room,
Fitz-James alone wore cap and plume.
735 To him each lady's look was lent;
On him each courtier's eye was bent;
Midst furs and silks and jewels sheen,
He stood, in simple Lincoln green,
[Pg 246] The center of the glittering ring—
740 And Snowdoun's Knight is Scotland's King.

XXVII

As wreath of snow, on mountain breast,
Slides from the rock that gave it rest,
Poor Ellen glided from her stay,
And at the Monarch's feet she lay;
745 No word her choking voice commands—
She showed the ring—she clasped her hands.
Oh! not a moment could he brook,
The generous Prince, that suppliant look!
Gently he raised her—and, the while,
750 Checked with a glance the circle's smile;
Graceful, but grave, her brow he kissed,
And bade her terrors be dismissed:
"Yes, Fair; the wandering poor Fitz-James
The fealty of Scotland claims.
755 To him thy woes, thy wishes, bring;
He will redeem his signet-ring.
Ask naught for Douglas; yester even
His prince and he have much forgiven.
Wrong hath he had from slanderous tongue,
760 I, from his rebel kinsmen, wrong.
We would not, to the vulgar crowd,
Yield what they craved with clamor loud;
Calmly we heard and judged his cause,
Our council aided, and our laws.
765 [Pg 247] I stanched thy father's death-feud stern,
With stout De Vaux and gray Glencairn;
And Bothwell's lord henceforth we own
The friend and bulwark of our throne.
But, lovely infidel, how now?
770 What clouds thy misbelieving brow?
Lord James of Douglas, lend thine aid;
Thou must confirm this doubting maid."

XXVIII

Then forth the noble Douglas sprung,
And on his neck his daughter hung.
775 The Monarch drank, that happy hour,
The sweetest, holiest draught of Power—
When it can say, with godlike voice,
Arise, sad Virtue, and rejoice!
Yet would not James the general eye
780 On Nature's raptures long should pry;
He stepped between—"Nay, Douglas, nay,
Steal not my proselyte away!
The riddle 'tis my right to read,
That brought this happy chance to speed.
785 —Yes, Ellen, when disguised I stray
In life's more low but happier way,
'Tis under name which veils my power,
Nor falsely veils—for Stirling's tower
Of yore the name of Snowdoun claims,
790 And Normans call me James Fitz-James.
[Pg 248] Thus watch I o'er insulted laws,
Thus learn to right the injured cause."
Then, in a tone apart and low—
"Ah, little traitress! none must know
795 What idle dream, what lighter thought,
What vanity full dearly bought,
Joined to thine eye's dark witchcraft, drew
My spell-bound steps to Benvenue,
In dangerous hour, and all but gave
800 Thy Monarch's life to mountain glaive!"—
Aloud he spoke, "Thou still dost hold
That little talisman of gold,
Pledge of my faith, Fitz-James's ring—
What seeks fair Ellen of the King?"

XXIX

805 Full well the conscious maiden guessed
He probed the weakness of her breast;
But, with that consciousness, there came
A lightening of her fears for Graeme,
And more she deemed the Monarch's ire
810 Kindled 'gainst him, who, for her sire
Rebellious broadsword boldly drew;
And, to her generous feeling true,
She craved the grace of Roderick Dhu.
"Forbear thy suit—the King of kings
815 Alone can stay life's parting wings.
I know his heart, I know his hand,
Have shared his cheer, and proved his brand.
[Pg 249] My fairest earldom would I give
To bid Clan-Alpine's Chieftain live!—
820 Hast thou no other boon to crave?
No other captive friend to save?"
Blushing, she turned her from the King,
And to the Douglas gave the ring,
As if she wished her sire to speak
825 The suit that stained her glowing cheek.
"Nay, then, my pledge has lost its force,
And stubborn justice holds her course.
Malcolm, come forth!"—and, at the word,
Down kneeled the Graeme to Scotland's lord.
830 "For thee, rash youth, no suppliant sues,
From thee may Vengeance claim her dues,
Who, nurtured underneath our smile,
Hast paid our care by treacherous wile,
And sought, amid thy faithful clan,
835 A refuge for an outlawed man,
Dishonoring thus thy loyal name.
Fetters and warder for the Graeme!"
His chain of gold the King unstrung,
The links o'er Malcolm's neck he flung,
840 Then gently drew the glittering band,
And laid the clasp on Ellen's hand.

Harp of the North, farewell! The hills grow dark,
On purple peaks a deeper shade descending;
In twilight copse the glowworm lights her spark,
845 The deer, half seen, are to the covert wending.
[Pg 250] Resume thy wizard elm! the fountain lending,
And the wild breeze, thy wilder minstrelsy;
Thy slumbers sweet with Nature's vespers blending,
With distant echo from the fold and lea,
850 And herdboy's evening pipe, and hum of housing bee.

Yet, once again, farewell, thou Minstrel harp!
Yet, once again, forgive my feeble sway,
And little reck I of the censure sharp
May idly cavil at an idle lay.
855 Much have I owed thy strains on life's long way,
Through secret woes the world has never known,
When on the weary night dawned wearier day,
And bitterer was the grief devoured alone.
That I o'erlived such woes, Enchantress! is thine own.

860 Hark! as my lingering footsteps slow retire,
Some Spirit of the Air has waked thy string!
'Tis now a seraph bold, with touch of fire,
'Tis now the brush of Fairy's frolic wing.
Receding now, the dying numbers ring
865 Fainter and fainter down the rugged dell,
And now the mountain breezes scarcely bring
A wandering witch-note of the distant spell—
And now, 'tis silent all!—Enchantress, fare thee well!

[Pg 251] NOTES

CANTO FIRST

2. witch-elm that shades Saint Fillan's spring. The well or spring of St. Fillan is on the summit of a hill near Loch Earn, some miles northeast of the scene of the poem. The reason why Scott places the "Harp of the North" here is that St. Fillan was the favorite saint of Robert Bruce, and a relic of the saint had been borne in a shrine by a warlike abbot at the battle of Bannockburn. The word "witch" (more properly spelled "wych") is connected with "wicker" and means "bending," "drooping."

29. Monan's rill. Scott takes the liberty of assigning a "rill" to this Scottish martyr of the fourth century on his own authority, unless his editors have been at fault in failing to discover the stream indicated.

31. Glenartney's. Glen Artney or Valley of the Artney. The Artney is a small river northeast of the main scene of the poem.

33. Benvoirlich. "Ben" is Scottish for mountain. Benvoirlich is near the western end of Glenartney.

53. Uam-Var. A mountain between Glenartney and the Braes of Doune. The name signifies "great den," and is derived from a rocky enclosure on the mountain-side, believed to have been used in primitive times as a toil or trap for deer. As told in Stanza IV a giant was fabled to have inhabited this den.

71. linn. This word means either "waterfall" or "steep ravine." The latter is probably the meaning here.

89. Menteith. A village and district southeast of the line of lakes—Loch Katrine, Loch Achray, and Loch Vennachar—about which the main action of the poem moves.

93. Lochard. Loch Ard, a small lake south of Loch Katrine. Aberfoyle. A village east of Loch Ard.

103. Cambusmore. An estate owned by Scott's friends, the Buchanans, on the border of the Braes of Doune.

105. Benledi. A majestic mountain shutting in the horizon to the north of Loch Vennachar.

112. Brigg of Turk. A romantic bridge, still in existence, between Loch Vennachar and Loch Achray.

120. dogs of black Saint Hubert's breed. A breed of dogs, usually black in color, very keen of scent and powerful in build, were kept by the abbots of St. Hubert in commemoration of their patron saint, who was a hunter.

145. Trossachs. A wild and beautiful defile between Loch Katrine and Loch Achray. The word signifies "rough or bristled country."

178. Round and around the sounds were cast. Notice the mimicry of the echo in the vowel sounds of the line.

208. dewdrops sheen. What part of speech is sheen? Is this use of the word obsolete in prose?

227. frequent flung. "Frequent" is used in the original Latin sense (Lat. frequens) of "crowded together," "numerous."

256. Unless he climb, with footing nice. Scott says: "Until the present road was made through the romantic pass I have presumptuously attempted to describe, there was no mode of issuing out of the defile called the Trossachs, excepting by a sort of ladder, composed of the branches and roots of trees." What is the meaning of "nice" here? What other meanings has the word had?

313. Highland plunderers. The clans inhabiting the region about Loch Katrine were in the habit of making incursions into the neighboring Lowlands to plunder and lay waste the country. Their warlike habits were fostered by the rugged and almost inaccessible character of the country, which prevented the Lowlanders from retaliating upon them, and enabled them also to resist the royal authority.

[Pg 253] 363. snood. A ribbon worn by Scotch lassies and upon marriage replaced by the matron's "curch" or cap. plaid. A rectangular shawl-like garment made of the checkered cloth called tartan.

438. couch was pulled. Freshly pulled heather was the most luxurious bedding known to the Highlander.

440. ptarmigan and heath-cock. These birds are a species of grouse, the one red, the other black.

460. on the visioned future bent. The gift of second-sight was universally believed in at this period in the Highlands.

504. retreat in dangerous hour. "The Celtic chieftains, whose lives were continually exposed to peril, had usually, in the most retired spot of their domain, some place of retreat for the hour of necessity ... a tower, a cavern, or a rustic hut." (Scott's note in edition of 1830.)

546. target. What is the connection of this word with that used in archery and gun-practice?

566. brook to wield. "Brook" commonly means "endure." What is its exact meaning here?

573. Ferragus, or Ascabart. Two giants whose names appear frequently in medieval romances of chivalry. The first is better known as Ferran, under which name he figures in the Orlando Furioso of Ariosto. Ascabart plays a part in the old English metrical romance of Sir Bevis of Hampton.

580. To whom, though more than kindred knew. This is a very obscure expression for Scott, who is usually so careful to make himself clear. The meaning seems to be: Ellen regarded her as a mother, though that was more than the actual kinship of the two justified (literally "knew how to recognize").

591. Knight of Snowdoun, James Fitz-James. As appears later in the poem, these were not his true name and title, though he was entitled to bear them.

622. a harp unseen. In modern Scotland the bagpipe has altogether taken the place of the harp. A writer of the sixteenth century says: "They (the Highlanders) take great delight to deck their harps with silver and precious stones; the poor ones that cannot attain thereunto deck them with crystal. They sing verses prettily compounded (i.e., composed) containing for the most part praises of valiant men."

[Pg 254]638. pibroch. (Pronounced pee-brock.) A wild tumultuous tune played on the bagpipes in the onset of battle.

657. reveillé. As the rhyme shows, this word is pronounced reh-vail'yah here. The common pronunciation in the United States is rev-a-lee'. It is the drum-beat or bugle-call at dawn to arouse soldiers.

CANTO SECOND

7. minstrel grey. Until well on in the eighteenth century it was customary for Highland chieftains to keep in their service a bard, whose chief duty it was to sing the exploits of the ancestors of the line.

69. Lead forth his fleet. What kind of figure is contained in the word fleet as applied to the flock of ducks?

131. harp, which erst Saint Modan swayed. St. Modan was not a harper, as Scott elsewhere ingenuously confesses, adding, however, that "Saint Dunstan certainly did play upon that instrument."

141. Wailed loud through Bothwell's bannered hall. The minstrel tries to account for the strange way in which his harp gives back mournful sounds instead of the joyous ones he is trying to evoke, by calling to Ellen's mind two other occasions when it behaved similarly. One of these was when it foreboded the death of Ellen's mother; the other when it foreboded the exile of the Douglasses during the minority of James V. For particulars, see the introduction on the historical setting of the poem. Bothwell Castle is on the Clyde, a few miles from Glasgow.

159. From Tweed to Spey. The Tweed is in the extreme southern part, the Spey in the northern part, of Scotland.

200. Lady of the Bleeding Heart. The minstrel calls Ellen so because a bleeding heart was the heraldic emblem of the Douglas family.

206. strathspey. A dance, named from the district of Strath Spey, in the north of Scotland. It resembled the reel, but was slower.

213. Clan-Alpine's pride. Clan Alpine was the collective name of the followers of Roderick Dhu, who figures later in the poem as Ellen's rejected suitor and the enemy of the mysterious "Knight of Snowdoun" who has just taken his departure from the island.

[Pg 255]216. Lennox foray. Lennox is the district south of Menteith, in the Lowlands. It was the scene of innumerable forays and "cattle-drives."

221. In Holy-Rood a knight he slew. Holyrood is the royal castle at Edinburgh, where the court usually was held. It was deemed a heinous and desperate offense to commit an act of blood in the royal residence or its immediate neighborhood, since such an act was an indirect violation of the majesty of the king, and a breaking of "the king's peace." It was for this offense that Roderick Dhu was exiled, and compelled to live like an outlaw in his mountain fastness.

227. Who else dared give. Notice how skilfully Scott manages to give us the relations of the chief characters of the poem to each other, and to show that Ellen's father, pursued by the hatred of James V, has been given the island shelter in Loch Katrine by Roderick Dhu who is about to make his appearance in the story.

236. Full soon may dispensation sought. A papal dispensation was necessary, because Ellen and Roderick Dhu were cousins. See next note.

249. All that a mother could bestow. Here again the poet takes the indirect way of making clear his point, namely that the matron introduced in the first canto is the mother of Roderick Dhu. The phrase "an orphan in the wild," is in apposition with the following phrase "her sister's child"—i.e., Ellen herself. From this it appears that Lady Margaret is Ellen's aunt, and that Roderick Dhu is, therefore, Ellen's cousin.

260. Maronnan's cell. A chapel at the eastern extremity of Loch Lomond, dedicated to the rather obscure saint here named.

270. Bracklinn's thundering wave. The reference is to a cascade made by a mountain torrent at the Bridge of Bracklinn, near the village of Callender in Menteith. Notice how Scott's numerous references to places in the region where the poem is laid tend gradually to give us an idea of the richness and diversity of the landscape.

305. Thy father's battle-brand. Some swords, especially those which had been magically forged, were held to possess the property of drawing themselves from their scabbard at the approach of their owner's deadly enemy. This is the[Pg 256] first vague hint which Scott gives us as to the real identity of the "Knight of Snowdoun." To throw a further glamor of romance about the prophetical weapon, he tells us that it was given by fairies to an ancestor of its present owner, namely, to Archibald, third Duke of Angus, called Tine-man (Loseman) because he always lost his men in battle, and that this gift was made while Archibald was in league with Harry Hotspur.

Stanza XVI. In this and the two following stanzas notice how skillfully description and narrative are woven together, and how the picture gains in detail and distinctness as the boats approach.

335. Glengyle ... Brianchoil. Why does the poet introduce these proper names? Are they of any value as information?

395. The chorus first could Allan know. The chorus was the first part of the song which the harper, listening from the shore, could distinctly make out.

408. Roderigh Vich Alpine dhu. The words vich and dhu are Gaelic, the first meaning "descendant of," the second "black or swarthy." King Alpine was the half-mythical ancestor from whom the clan of Alpine sprung. The line means, therefore, "Black Roderick, descendant of Alpine." Compare II, xii, 220, where Allan-bane calls the chieftain "Black Sir Roderick."

419–426. Glen Fruin, Bannochar, Glenn Luss, Ross-dhu, Leven-glen. What, in simple language, should you say was the value of this array of obscure names in the song?

431. the rose-bud that graces yon islands. To whom do the singers metaphorically refer?

497. Percy's Norman pennon. Captured by the Douglas in the raid which led to the battle of Otterburn, as celebrated in the old ballad of Chevy Chase. (Sprague.)

504. The waned crescent. This may be taken as referring to some victory over the Turkish armies in the East,[Pg 257] or to the defeat of Scott's ancestor, Sir Walter Scott of Buccleugh, who was defeated in an attempt to set the young king free from the Douglas. The shield of Sir Walter bore a crescent moon.

506. Blantyre. A priory on the banks of the Clyde near Bothwell castle, of which ruins still remain.

574. Glenfinlas. A valley to the northeast of Loch Katrine, between Ben-An and Ben-Ledi.

583. Strath-Endrick glen. A valley on the southeast of Loch Lomond, presumably Malcolm's home.

623–625. The Meggat, the Yarrow, and the Ettrick are successive tributaries, the waters of which eventually reach the Tweed. The Teviot is also a tributary of the Tweed. All five rivers are in the southern part of Scotland.

678. Links of Forth. Banks of the river Forth. In general the word "links" means flat or undulating stretches of sandy soil, partially covered with grass or heather.

801. pity 'twere such cheek should feel the midnight air. Was there anything in the Highland character and training which would make these words seem particularly cutting? Notice how the insult is deepened later by the assumption on Rhoderick Dhu's part that Malcolm is capable of treachery toward Douglas and the Clan of Alpine.

809. henchman. This word is said to have been originally "haunch-man" because it was the duty of this retainer to stand beside his master's chair (at his haunches as it were) at the feast, in readiness to do his bidding or to defend him if attacked.

831. Fiery Cross. The signal for the gathering of the clan to war. The preparation and carrying abroad of this cross is described in the next canto.

CANTO THIRD

63. shivers. "Slivers" is the more common word, but the verb "to shiver," meaning to break in pieces, keeps the original meaning.

154. River Demon. Concerning this creature Scott gives the current observation: "The River Demon, or River-horse, is an evil spirit, delighting to forebode and witness calamity. He frequents most Highland lakes and rivers; and one of his most memorable exploits was performed upon the banks of Loch Vennachar: it consisted in the destruction of a bridal party with all its attendants."

156. noontide hag. A gigantic emaciated female figure which, contrary to the general rule of ghostly creatures, appeared in the full blaze of noon.

168. Ben-Shie's boding scream. The ben-shie or banshee was a tutelar spirit, supposed to forebode by midnight howlings the death of a member of a family to which it was attached. The superstition is still prevalent in Ireland.

191. Inch-Cailliach. An island in Loch Lomond, used as a place of burial for several neighboring clans, of whom the descendants of King Alpine were the chief. The name means "Isle of Nuns," or "Isle of Old Women."

Stanza IX. Notice the change in the rime system which marks the break from flowing narrative to solemn dramatic speech, and is continued through the stanza to increase the effect of solemnity.

253. Coir-Uriskin, thy goblin cave. This cave and the pass of Beala-nam-bo were on the slopes of Ben Venue, a mountain near Loch Katrine. See notes to 622 and 664.

286. Lanrick mead. This meadow is still pointed out to the traveler on the road from Loch Vennachar to the Trossachs.

300. dun deer's hide. It was their shoes made of untanned deer's hide, with the hair outwards, which gave the Highlander's their nickname, "Red-shanks."

386. correi. Scott explains this as "the hollow side of the hill, where game usually lies."

461. chapel of St. Bride. This chapel stood on the knoll of Strath-Ire, mentioned at the beginning of the stanza, halfway up the pass of Leny. Scott is singularly careful not to take liberties with the geography of the localities where his story is laid.

468. pole-ax. An old weapon consisting of a broad ax-head fastened to a long pole, with a prick at the back.

480. Tombea's Mary. Tombea and Armandave are names of places in the vicinity of Strath-Ire.

570. Balquidder. The braes of Balquidder extended west from Loch Voil, to the northward of the scene of the poem. midnight blaze. The heather on the moorlands is often set on fire by the shepherds in order that new herbage may spring up.

578. Loch Voil, etc. This and the following names are of poetic value in suggesting tangibly the rapid passage of the runner from place to place.

622. Coir-nan-Uriskin. Scott says that this name, signifying "Den of the Shaggy Men," was derived from the mythical inhabitants of the place, creatures half man and half goat, resembling the satyrs of classical mythology.

641. still, stillness. Can you instance other cases of the use of adjective for noun?

664. Beal-nam-bo. The name signifies "Pass of cattle." It is described as a "most magnificent glade, overhung with aged birch-trees, a little higher up the mountains than the Coir-nan-Uriskin."

672. A single page, to bear his sword. The sword bearer, like the henchman and the bard, was a regular officer attached to the person of a Highland Chief. He was called in Gaelic "Gilliemore," or sword-man.

CANTO FOURTH

19. Braes of Doune. Doune is a village on the Teith, a few miles northwest of Stirling. The word "brae" means slope or declivity; the braes of Doune stretch away east and north from the village.

[Pg 260]68. When swept our merrymen Gallangad. The reference is to one of the forays or "cattledrives" which the Highland chiefs were fond of making at the expense of their neighbors. The situation of Gallangad is now unknown, but it was presumably a portion of the Lennox district.

73. kerns. The kern or cateran of the Highlands was a light-armed infantryman, as opposed to the heavy-armed "gallowglass."

78. scatheless. Without fear of injury, because of the weariness of the animal after the march.

82. boss. The word means knob or protuberance, especially that in the center of a shield. What the boss of a cliff can be it is a little difficult to understand.

98. watching while the deer is broke. The cutting up of the deer and allotting of the various portions was technically known as the "breaking" of the deer. A certain gristly portion was given, by long custom, to the birds, and came to be known as "the raven's bone."

140. A spy has sought my land. Roderick refers, as appears later, to the "Knight of Snowdoun" of Canto I.

153. sable pale. An heraldic term, applied to a black perpendicular stripe in a coat of arms.

231. Cambus-kenneth's fane. The ruins of Cambus-kenneth Abbey are still to be seen on the banks of the Forth near Stirling.

283. darkling was the battle tried. Scott first wrote "blindfold" in place of "darkling."

285. pall. A rich cloth, from which mantles of noblemen were made. Vair. A fur much used for the garments of nobility in medieval times.

306. fairies' fatal green. The elves or gnomes wore green, and were angered when any mortal ventured to wear that color. For this or some other reason green was held an unlucky color in many parts of Scotland.

308. thou wert christened man. Urgan, as appears later, was a mortal, who had fallen under the spell of the elves and lived their life, but who still retained some of the privileges and immunities which belonged, according to[Pg 261] medieval belief, to all persons who had been baptized into the Christian church.

385. my former guide. This is Red Murdoch, of whom Roderick Dhu speaks, see 144 ff.

531. The Allan and the Devan are two streams which descend from the hills of Perthshire into the lowland plain.

555. from Maudlin's charge. Maudlin, as a proper name, is a corruption of Magdalen. The curious development of meaning which has taken place in the word should be looked out in the dictionary.

559. peasant pitched a bar. "Pitching the bar" was a feat of strength like the modern "putting the shot." It was usually indulged in by the peasantry at fairs and on the village greens.

CANTO FIFTH

124. While Albany with feeble hand. After the death of James IV at Flodden Field the regency was held first by the mother of the young king, and then by the Duke of Albany. The latter was forced by the Estates to leave Scotland in 1624, and soon after the regency fell practically, though, not constitutionally, into the hands of the king's step-father, Archibald Douglas, Earl of Angus. See introduction on the historical setting of the poem.

301. On Bochastle the moldering lines, etc. East of Lake Vennachar, in the moor of Bochastle, are some traces of the Roman occupation, in the form of mounds and intrenchments.

[Pg 262]465. weed, garment. The word is now restricted to the phrase "widow's weeds."

490–497. Torry, Lendrick, Deanstown, Doune, Blair-Drummond, Ochtertyre, and Kier, are all on the Teith, between Bochastle and Sterling.

525. by Saint Serle. The necessities of rime compel the poet to choose a very obscure saint from the calendar.

532. postern gate, the small rear gate of a castle, generally used by the servants only.

584. jennet. A small Spanish horse, originally a cross between native and Arabian stock.

611. morricers, morrice dancers. The morrice or morris was an old dance, imported into England from Spain. Believed to be a corruption of "Moorish."

614. Bold Robin Hood and all his band. It is of course not meant that the renowned outlaw himself and his followers were there, but masqueraders representing these traditional characters. All the names that follow occur in one or other of the legends and ballads which gathered about Robin Hood's name.

660. Ladies Rock. A hillock between the Castle and Grayfriar's church, from which the court ladies viewed the games.

872. lily lawn. A conventional phrase in old ballad poetry, without any very definite meaning.

CANTO SIXTH

60. halberd, a weapon consisting of a battle-ax and pike at the end of a long staff. brand, a poetical word for sword.

95. Drink upsees out. "Upsees" is a corruption of a Dutch Bacchanalian interjection.

Stanza XVII. Notice how both rime and rhythm mirror the growing excitement of the conflict.

[Pg 263]452. As their Tinchel cows the game. The "Tinchel" was a circle of hunters, surrounding a herd of deer and gradually closing in on them.

591. How Roderick brooked his minstrelsy. "Brooked" is not used in its strong sense of "endured," but in the weaker one of "received"; we should say colloquially "how he took it."[Pg 264]

[Pg 265] APPENDIX

(Adapted, and enlarged, from the Manual for the Study of English Classics, by George L. Marsh)

HELPS TO STUDY

Life of Scott

What prominent traits of Scott's character can be traced to his ancestors (pp. 9, 10)?

What characteristic is represented in his refusal to learn Latin and Greek at school?

What was his own method of obtaining an education? In what did he become proficient (p. 12)?

How did he regard his legal studies? How did they benefit him in his later work?

Tell of the composition, publication, and popularity of his first poems (pp. 20 ff.).

In what business venture did he become involved, and what was the final outcome? What defect in his character is it charged that his business relations brought to light (pp. 24, 25)?

What can you say of his last years and his struggle to pay off the debts incurred by his connection with Ballantyne?

[Pg 266] Scott and the Romantic Movement

What is meant by the "Romantic Movement"? What four men were chiefly instrumental in bringing about this revolution in English poetry (p. 40)?

What was the influence of Scott's poetry on the age in comparison with that of his chief contemporaries? Give the reasons (p. 41).

What were the distinguishing qualities of the literature of the eighteenth century? Illustrate these by examples from Pope or any other poet that you choose from that period, and put them into contrast with the qualities of the romantic poets. Does Scott's style differ greatly from that of the poets of the preceding century?

The Lady of the Lake—Construction

Is there anything that has taken place before the opening of the poem that has to be understood for a thorough appreciation of the story (p. 46)? How are the previous fortunes of the Douglas family related (pp. 96–98)?

Note the transition from stanza X to XI (p. 66); from XVI to XVII (p. 71); from XXIV to XXV (p. 144); and many others.

How many cases of concealed identity are there in the poem? Does this turning of the plot on mistaken identity make it seem unreal? Show in each case where the identity is exposed and where hints have been given beforehand of the real identity.

[Pg 267]Is there any intimation of the identity of Ellen and her father in lines 565–7, page 81; lines 728–39, page 87?

What is the first hint of Ellen's love story and the name of her lover (pp. 74, 92)?

Where are the relations of Ellen with Roderick and with Malcolm further discussed (p. 98)?

Does the prophecy (p. 157) heighten the dramatic effect of the following scene (see p. 196)?

What other results of Scott's early interest in ballad literature can you point out in The Lady of the Lake?

What is the purpose of the long speeches between James and Roderick in the dramatic scene following Roderick's calling of his men?

Description

Are the nature descriptions given for scenic effect, or do they serve as a background and setting for the story?

Which is the best in the poem: nature description, plot construction, character, description, or the portrayal of old life and customs?

Are the landscape scenes given minutely, or are they drawn broadly, with a free hand?

Does Scott keep closely to the geography of the region of his tale (see map, p. 6, and note 461, p. 259)?

Perry Pictures 912–17 (from Landseer's paintings of deer) and 1511 (Ben Lomond) may be used in illustration of The Lady of the Lake.

Characters

Are the characters distinctly drawn—do they seem real people of flesh and blood?

Do you feel any sympathy for Roderick Dhu? Does your impression of his character improve (pp. 96, 98, 99, 182, 188, 195, and 241)?

Is Allan-bane representative of the place in the ancient Scottish clan which the minstrel had?

THEME SUBJECTS

1. Scott's boyhood (with emphasis on the cultivation of characteristics displayed in his poems; pp. 10–12).

2. Scott as a landed proprietor (pp. 27–33). This may well take the form of an imaginary visit to Abbotsford.

3. Scott in business (pp. 23–25, 34–36). Compare his struggle against debt with Mark Twain's.

6. Summary of the action; as a whole, or by parts (cantos or other logical divisions).

11. Descriptions of scenes resembling, in one way or another, attractive scenes depicted in The Lady of the Lake.

13. Contrast feudal warfare (especially as shown on pp. 81, 182) with modern warfare.

14. Show, by selected passages, Scott's veneration for the ideals of feudalism (pp. 81, 228, etc.).

[Pg 270]15. Rewrite the scene of the combat between Roderick and Fitz-James (pp. 198–200) in the prose style of Scott as in the tournament scene in Ivanhoe.

SELECTIONS FOR CLASS READING

[Pg 271] CLASSES OF POETRY

It is important for the student of poetry to know the principal classes into which poems are divided. The following brief explanations do not pretend to be exhaustive, but they should be of practical aid. It must be remembered that a long poem is sometimes not very definitely of any one class, but combines characteristics of different classes.

The epic is the most pretentious kind of narrative poetry; it tells in serious verse of the great deeds of a popular hero. The Iliad, the Aeneid, Beowulf, Paradise Lost are important epics. The Idylls of the King is in the main an epic poem.

The metrical romance is a rather long story in verse, of a less exalted and heroic character than the true epic. Scott's Lady of the Lake is a familiar example.

The verse tale is shorter and likely to be less dignified and serious than the metrical romance. The stories in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, or Burns's Tam O'Shanter, may serve as examples.

The ballad is a narrative poem, usually rather short and in such form as to be sung. It is distinguished from a song by the fact that it tells a story. Popular or folk ballads are ancient and of unknown authorship—handed down by word of mouth and varied by the transmitters. Artistic ballads are imitations, by known poets, of traditional ballads.

Descriptive and reflective poems have characteristics sufficiently indicated by the adjectives in italics.

[Pg 272]The pastoral is a particular kind of descriptive and narrative poem in which the scene is laid in the country.

The idyll is, according to the etymology of its name, a "little picture." Tennyson's Idylls of the King are rather more epic than idyllic in the strict sense of the term. The terms idyll and pastoral are not definitely discriminated.

Lyric poetry is poetry expressing personal feeling or emotion and in tuneful form. Songs are the simplest examples of lyric poetry; formal odes, such as Wordsworth's on "Immortality," the most elaborate. A lyric does not primarily tell a story, but it may imply one or refer to one.

The elegy is a reflective lyric prompted by the death of some one. Tennyson's In Memoriam is a collection of elegiac lyrics.

A tragedy is a serious drama which presents its hero in a losing struggle ending in his death.

The dramatic monologue is a poem in which a dramatic situation is presented, or perhaps a story is told, by one speaker.

Transcriber's Note:

The following errors have been corrected in this text:

Page 41: added period after "Southey in 1774"

Page 89: put blank line between lines 18 and 19 of Canto Second

Page 98: moved line number 255 of Canto Second to correct position (in the original the line number was at line 254)

Page 165: changed "by their monarch's si" to "... side"

Page 196: changed "by" to "my" in "When foeman bade me draw my blade;"

Page 212: changed "shreik" to "shriek" in "the women shriek;"

Page 253: changed comma to period after "a harp unseen"

Page 256: changed "364" to "363" in note on line 343 of Canto Second

Page 258: changed "364" to "363" in note on line 116 of Canto Third

Page 260: added period after "150" in note on line 150 of Canto Fourth

Page 262: added period after "from the calendar"

Page 262: changed "Robinhood" to "Robin Hood" in "Bold Robin Hood and all his band."

Page 268: changed "p. 5" to "p. 6" in question "Does Scott keep ..."

				PAGE
Map				6
Introduction
	I.	Life of Scott		9
	II.	Scott's Place in the Romantic Movement		39
	III.	The Lady of the Lake
			Historical Setting	46
			General Criticism and Analysis	48
Text				59
Notes				251
Appendix
	Helps to Study			265
	Theme Subjects			269
	Selections for Class Reading			270
	Classes of Poetry			271

Transcriber's Notes:

THE LADY OF THE LAKE

CONTENTS

[Pg 9] I. LIFE OF SCOTT

I

II

III

IV

FOOTNOTES:

[Pg 39] II. SCOTT'S PLACE IN THE ROMANTIC MOVEMENT

[Pg 46] III. THE LADY OF THE LAKE

1. HISTORICAL SETTING

2. GENERAL CRITICISM AND ANALYSIS

[Pg 59] THE LADY OF THE LAKE

CANTO FIRST THE CHASE

I

[Pg 61] II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

IX

[Pg 66] X

XI

XII

XIII

XIV

XV

XVI

XVII

XVIII

XIX

XX

XXI

[Pg 76] XXII

XXIII

XXIV

XXV

XXVI

XXVII

XXVIII

XXIX

XXX

XXXI SONG

XXXII

SONG—(Continued)

XXXIII

XXXIV

[Pg 87] XXXV

[Pg 88] CANTO SECOND THE ISLAND

I

II SONG

III SONG (Continued)

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

IX

X

XI

XII

XIII

XIV

XV

XVI

XVII

XVIII

XIX BOAT SONG

XX

XXI

XXII

XXIII

XXIV

XXV

XXVI

XXVII

XXVIII

THE
LADY OF THE LAKE

CANTO FIRST

THE CHASE

XXXI

SONG

[Pg 88] CANTO SECOND

THE ISLAND

II

SONG

III

SONG (Continued)

XIX

BOAT SONG

[Pg 122] CANTO THIRD

THE GATHERING

XVI

CORONACH

XXIII

SONG

XXIX

HYMN TO THE VIRGIN

[Pg 152] CANTO FOURTH

THE PROPHECY

V

NORMAN

X

ELLEN

XII

BALLAD—ALICE BRAND

XIII

BALLAD—(Continued)

XIV

BALLAD—(Continued)

XV

BALLAD—(Continued)

[Pg 173] XXII

SONG