Walter Scott - Lady of the Lake

Or Ellen, innocently gay,
Turned all inquiry light away:
"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;
While viewless minstrels touch the string,
'Tis thus our charméd rimes we sing."

She sung, and still a harp unseen
Filled up the symphony between.

"Soldier, rest! thy warfare o'er,
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,
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,
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 here
Mustering clan, or squadron tramping.

Yet the lark's shrill fife may come
At the day-break from the fallow,
And the bittern sound his drum,
Booming from the sedgy shallow.

Ruder sounds shall none be near,
Guards nor warders challenge here,
Here's no war-steed's neigh and champing,
Shouting clans or squadrons stamping."

She paused—then, blushing, led the lay
To grace the stranger of the day.

Her mellow notes awhile prolong
The cadence of the flowing song,
Till to her lips in measured frame
The minstrel verse spontaneous came.

"Huntsman, rest! thy chase is done,
While our slumbrous spells assail ye,
Dream not, with the rising sun,
Bugles here shall sound reveillé.

Sleep! the deer is in his den;
Sleep! thy hounds are by thee lying;
Sleep! nor dream in yonder glen,
How thy gallant steed lay dying.

Huntsman, rest! thy chase is done,
Think not of the rising sun,
For at dawning to assail ye,
Here no bugles sound reveillé."

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.

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
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.
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
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.

And doubt distracts him at the view—
O were his senses false or true?
Dreamed he of death, or broken vow,
Or is it all a vision now?

At length, with Ellen in a grove
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;
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,
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,
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,
Rushed, chasing countless thoughts along.

Until, the giddy whirl to cure,
He rose, and sought the moonshine pure.

The wild-rose, eglantine, and broom,
Wasted around their rich perfume:
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
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?

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,
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."

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,
And morning dawned on Benvenue.

At morn the blackcock trims his jetty wing,
'Tis morning prompts the linnet's blithest lay,
All Nature's children feel the matin spring
Of life reviving, with reviving day;

And while yon little bark glides down the bay,
Wafting the stranger on his way again,
Morn's genial influence roused a minstrel gray,
And sweetly o'er the lake was heard thy strain,
Mixed with the sounding harp,
O white-haired Allan-bane!

"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,
Than men from memory erase
The benefits of former days;

Then, stranger, go! good speed the while,
Nor think again of the lonely isle.

"High place to thee in royal court,
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,
Thy lady constant, kind and dear,
And lost in love, and friendship's smile
Be memory of the lonely isle.