Walter Scott - The Complete Poems of Sir Walter Scott

(The neighbouring dingle bears his name),

With lurching step around me prowl,

And stop, against the moon to howl;

The mountain-boar, on battle set,

His tusks upon my stem would whet;

While doe, and roe, and reddeer good,

Have bounded by, through gay greenwood.

Then oft, from Newark’s riven tower,

Sallied a Scottish monarch’s power:

A thousand vassals mustered round,

With horse, and hawk, and horn, and hound;

And I might see the youth intent,

Guard every pass with crossbow bent;

And through the brake the rangers stalk,

And falc’ners hold the ready hawk;

And foresters in greenwood trim,

Lead in the leash the gazehounds grim,

Attentive as the bratchet’s bay

From the dark covert drove the prey,

To slip them as he broke away.

The startled quarry bounds amain,

As fast the gallant greyhounds strain;

Whistles the arrow from the bow,

Answers the arquebuss below;

While all the rocking hills reply,

To hoof-clang, hound, and hunter’s cry,

And bugles ringing lightsomely.”

Of such proud huntings many tales

Yet linger in our lonely dales,

Up pathless Ettrick and on Yarrow,

Where erst the outlaw drew his arrow.

But not more blithe that silvan court,

Than we have been at humbler sport;

Though small our pomp, and mean our game

Our mirth, dear Mariott, was the same.

Remember’st thou my greyhounds true?

O’er holt or hill there never flew,

From slip or leash there never sprang,

More fleet of foot, or sure of fang.

Nor dull, between each merry chase,

Passed by the intermitted space;

For we had fair resource in store,

In Classic and in Gothic lore:

We marked each memorable scene,

And held poetic talk between;

Nor hill nor brook we paced along

But had its legend or its song.

All silent now—for now are still

Thy bowers, untenanted Bowhill!

No longer, from thy mountains dun,

The yeoman hears the wellknown gun,

And while his honest heart glows Warm,

At thought of his paternal farm,

Round to his mates a brimmer fills,

And drinks, “The Chieftain of the Hills!”

No fairy forms, in Yarrow’s bowers,

Trip o’er the walks, or tend the flowers,

Fair as the elves whom Janet saw

By moonlight dance on Carterhaugh;

No youthful baron’s left to grace

The forest-sheriff’s lonely chase,

And ape, in manly step and tone,

The majesty of Oberon:

And she is gone, whose lovely face

Is but her least and lowest grace;

Though if to sylphid queen ‘twere given

To show our earth the charms of Heaven,

She could not glide along the air,

With form more light, or face more fair.

No more the widow’s deafened ear

Grows quick that lady’s step to hear:

At noontide she expects her not,

Nor busies her to trim the cot:

Pensive she turns her humming wheel,

Or pensive cooks her orphans’ meal;

Yet blesses, ere she deals their bread,

The gentle hand by which they’re fed.

From Yair,—which hills so closely bind,

Scarce can the Tweed his passage find,

Though much he fret, and chafe, and toil,

Till all his eddying currents boil, -

Her long descended lord is gone,

And left us by the stream alone.

And much I miss those sportive boys,

Companions of my mountain joys,

Just at the age ‘twixt boy and youth,

When thought is speech, and speech is truth.

Close to my side, with what delight

They pressed to hear of Wallace wight,

When, pointing to his airy mound,

I called his ramparts holy ground!

Kindled their brows to hear me speak;

And I have smiled, to feel my cheek,

Despite the difference of our years,

Return again the glow of theirs.

Ah, happy boys! such feelings pure,

They will not, cannot, long endure;

Condemned to stem the world’s rude tide,

You may not linger by the side;

For Fate shall thrust you from the shore,

And Passion ply the sail and oar.

Yet cherish the remembrance still,

Of the lone mountain and the rill;

For trust, dear boys, the time will come

When fiercer transport shall be dumb,

And you will think right frequently,

But, well I hope, without a sigh,

On the free hours that we have spent

Together, on the brown hill’s bent.

When, musing on companions gone,

We doubly feel ourselves alone,

Something, my friend, we yet may gain;

There is a pleasure in this pain:

It soothes the love of lonely rest,

Deep in each gentler heart impressed.

‘Tis silent amid worldly toils,

And stifled soon by mental broils;

But, in a bosom thus prepared,

Its still small voice is often heard,

Whispering a mingled sentiment,

‘Twixt resignation and content.

Oft in my mind such thoughts awake,

By lone Saint Mary’s silent lake;

Thou know’st it well,—nor fen, nor sedge,

Pollute the pure lake’s crystal edge;

Abrupt and sheer, the mountains sink

At once upon the level brink;

And just a trace of silver sand

Marks where the water meets the land.

Far in the mirror, bright and blue,

Each hill’s huge outline you may view;

Shaggy with heath, but lonely bare,

Nor tree, nor bush, nor brake, is there,

Save where of land yon slender line

Bears thwart the lake the scattered pine.

Yet even this nakedness has power,

And aids the feeling of the hour:

Nor thicket, dell, nor copse you spy,

Where living thing concealed might lie;

Nor point, retiring, hides a dell,

Where swain, or woodman lone, might dwell;

There’s nothing left to fancy’s guess,

You see that all is loneliness:

And silence aids—though the steep hills

Send to the lake a thousand rills;

In summer tide, so soft they weep,

The sound but lulls the ear asleep;

Your horse’s hoof-tread sounds too rude,

So stilly is the solitude.

Nought living meets the eye or ear,

But well I ween the dead are near;

For though, in feudal strife, a foe

Hath lain our Lady’s chapel low,

Yet still beneath the hallowed soil,

The peasant rests him from his toil,

And, dying, bids his bones be laid,

Where erst his simple fathers prayed.

If age had tamed the passion’s strife,

And fate had cut my ties to life,

Here, have I thought, ‘twere sweet to dwell

And rear again the chaplain’s cell,

Like that same peaceful hermitage

Where Milton longed to spend his age.

‘Twere sweet to mark the setting day

On Bourhope’s lonely top decay;

And, as it faint and feeble died

On the broad lake and mountain’s side,

To say, “Thus pleasures fade away;

Youth, talents, beauty, thus decay,

And leave us dark, forlorn, and grey;”

Then gaze on Dryhope’s ruined tower,

And think on Yarrow’s faded Flower:

And when that mountain-sound I heard,

Which bids us be for storm prepared,

The distant rustling of his wings,

As up his force the tempest brings,

‘Twere sweet, ere yet his terrors rave,

To sit upon the wizard’s grave -

That wizard-priest’s, whose bones are thrust

From company of holy dust;

On which no sunbeam ever shines -

So superstition’s creed divines -

Thence view the lake, with sullen roar,

Heave her broad billows to the shore;

And mark the wild swans mount the gale,

Spread wide through mist their snowy sail,

And ever stoop again, to lave

Their bosoms on the surging wave: