Walter Scott - The Complete Poems of Sir Walter Scott

Which, mounted, gave you access where

A parapet’s embattled row

Did seaward round the castle go.

Sometimes in dizzy steps descending,

Sometimes in narrow circuit bending,

Sometimes in platform broad extending,

Its varying circle did combine

Bulwark, and bartisan, and line,

And bastion, tower, and vantage-coign:

Above the booming ocean leant

The far projecting battlement;

The billows burst in ceaseless flow

Upon the precipice below.

Where’er Tantallon faced the land,

Gateworks and walls were strongly manned;

No need upon the sea-girt side;

The steepy rock, and frantic tide,

Approach of human step denied;

And thus these lines, and ramparts rude,

Were left in deepest solitude.

III

And, for they were so lonely, Clare

Would to these battlements repair,

And muse upon her sorrows there,

And list the seabird’s cry;

Or slow, like noontide ghost, would glide

Along the dark grey bulwark’s side,

And ever on the heaving tide

Look down with weary eye.

Oft did the cliff, and swelling main,

Recall the thoughts of Whitby’s fane -

A home she ne’er might see again;

For she had laid adown,

So Douglas bade, the hood and veil,

And frontlet of the cloister pale,

And Benedictine gown:

It were unseemly sight, he said,

A novice out of convent shade.

Now her bright locks, with sunny glow,

Again adorned her brow of snow;

Her mantle rich, whose borders round,

A deep and fretted broidery bound,

In golden foldings sought the ground;

Of holy ornament, alone

Remained a cross with ruby stone;

And often did she look

On that which in her hand she bore,

With velvet bound, and broidered o’er,

Her breviary book.

In such a place, so lone, so grim,

At dawning pale, or twilight dim,

It fearful would have been

To meet a form so richly dressed,

With book in hand, and cross on breast,

And such a woeful mien.

Fitz-Eustace, loitering with his bow,

To practise on the gull and crow,

Saw her, at distance, gliding slow,

And did by Mary swear -

Some lovelorn fay she might have been,

Or, in romance, some spellbound queen;

For ne’er, in workday world, was seen

A form so witching fair.

IV

Once walking thus, at evening tide,

It chanced a gliding sail she spied,

And, sighing, thought—”The Abbess, there,

Perchance, does to her home repair;

Her peaceful rule, where Duty, free,

Walks hand in hand with Charity;

Where oft Devotion’s tranced glow

Can such a glimpse of heaven bestow,

That the enraptured sisters see

High vision, and deep mystery;

The very form of Hilda fair,

Hovering upon the sunny air,

And smiling on her votaries’ prayer.

Oh! wherefore, to my duller eye,

Did still the saint her form deny!

Was it that, seared by sinful scorn,

My heart could neither melt nor burn?

Or lie my warm affections low,

With him, that taught them first to glow?

Yet, gentle Abbess, well I knew,

To pay thy kindness grateful due,

And well could brook the mild command,

That ruled thy simple maiden band.

How different now! condemned to bide

My doom from this dark tyrant’s pride.

But Marmion has to learn, ere long,

That constant mind, and hate of wrong,

Descended to a feeble girl,

From Red De Clare, stout Gloucester’s Earl:

Of such a stem, a sapling weak,

He ne’er shall bend, although he break.”

V

“But see;—what makes this armour here?”

For in her path there lay

Targe, corslet, helm;—she viewed them near.

“The breastplate pierced!—Ay, much I fear,

Weak fence wert thou ‘gainst foeman’s spear,

That hath made fatal entrance here,

As these dark blood-gouts say.

Thus, Wilton! Oh! not corslet’s ward,

Not truth, as diamond pure and hard,

Could be thy manly bosom’s guard,

On yon disastrous day!”

She raised her eyes in mournful mood -

Wilton himself before her stood!

It might have seemed his passing ghost,

For every youthful grace was lost;

And joy unwonted, and surprise,

Gave their strange wildness to his eyes.

Expect not, noble dames and lords,

That I can tell such scene in words:

What skilful limner e’er would choose

To paint the rainbow’s varying hues,

Unless to mortal it were given

To dip his brush in dyes of heaven?

Far less can my weak line declare

Each changing passion’s shade:

Bright’ning to rapture from despair,

Sorrow, surprise, and pity there,

And joy, with her angelic air,

And hope, that paints the future fair,

Their varying hues displayed:

Each o’er its rival’s ground extending,

Alternate conquering, shifting, blending.

Till all, fatigued, the conflict yield,

And mighty Love retains the field.

Shortly I tell what then he said,

By many a tender word delayed,

And modest blush, and bursting sigh,

And question kind, and fond reply:-

VI

De Wilton’s History.

“Forget we that disastrous day,

When senseless in the lists I lay.

Thence dragged—but how I cannot know,

For, sense and recollection fled,

I found me on a pallet low,

Within my ancient beadsman’s shed.

Austin—remember’st thou, my Clare,

How thou didst blush, when the old man,

When first our infant love began,

Said we would make a matchless pair?

Menials and friends and kinsmen fled

From the degraded traitor’s bed -

He only held my burning head,

And tended me for many a day,

While wounds and fever held their sway

But far more needful was his care,

When sense returned to wake despair;

For I did tear the closing wound,

And dash me frantic on the ground,

If e’er I heard the name of Clare.

At length, to calmer reason brought,

Much by his kind attendance wrought,

With him I left my native strand,

And, in a palmer’s weeds arrayed.

My hated name and form to shade

I journeyed many a land;

No more a lord of rank and birth,

But mingled with the dregs of earth.

Oft Austin for my reason feared,

When I would sit, and deeply brood

On dark revenge, and deeds of blood,

Or wild mad schemes upreared.

My friend at length fell sick, and said,

God would remove him soon:

And, while upon his dying bed,

He begged of me a boon -

If e’er my deadliest enemy

Beneath my brand should conquered lie,

Even then my mercy should awake,

And spare his life for Austin’s sake.

VII

“Still restless as a second Cain,

To Scotland next my route was ta’en,

Full well the paths I knew.

Fame of my fate made various sound,

That death in pilgrimage I found,

That I had perished of my wound -

None cared which tale was true:

And living eye could never guess

De Wilton in his palmer’s dress;

For now that sable slough is shed,

And trimmed my shaggy beard and head,

I scarcely know me in the glass.

A chance most wondrous did provide

That I should be that baron’s guide -

I will not name his name! -

Vengeance to God alone belongs;

But when I think on all my wrongs,

My blood is liquid flame!

And ne’er the time shall I forget,

When, in a Scottish hostel set,

Dark looks we did exchange: