Walter Scott - The Complete Poems of Sir Walter Scott

The sparkling glance, soon blown to fire,

Of hasty love or headlong ire.

His limbs were cast in manly could

For hardy sports or contest bold;

And though in peaceful garb arrayed,

And weaponless except his blade,

His stately mien as well implied

A highborn heart, a martial pride,

As if a baron’s crest he wore,

And sheathed in armor bode the shore.

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

Less used to sue than to command.

XXII

Awhile the maid the stranger eyed,

And, reassured, at length replied,

That Highland halls were open still

To wildered wanderers of the hill.

‘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;

On yonder mountain’s purple head

Have ptarmigan and heathcock bled,

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;

‘No right have I to claim, misplaced,

The welcome of expected guest.

A wanderer, here by fortune toss,

My way, my friends, my courser lost,

I ne’er before, believe me, fair,

Have ever drawn your mountain air,

Till on this lake’s romantic strand

I found a fey in fairy land!’—

XXIII

‘I well believe,’ the maid replied,

As her light skiff approached the side,—

‘I well believe, that ne’er before

Your foot has trod Loch Katrine’s shore

But yet, as far as yesternight,

Old Allan-bane foretold your plight,—

A gray -haired sire, whose eye intent

Was on the visioned future bent.

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,

That tasselled horn so gayly 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

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

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.

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;

For seldom, sure, if e’er before,

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.

Nor frequent does the bright oar break

The darkening mirror of the lake,

Until the rocky isle they reach,

And moor their shallop on the beach.

XXV

The stranger viewed the shore around;

‘T was 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,

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,

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.

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

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.

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

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.

An instant in this porch she stayed,

And gayly 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,

My gentle guide, in following thee!’—

He crossed the threshold,—and a clang

Of angry steel that instant rang.

To his bold brow his spirit rushed,

But soon for vain alarm he blushed

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,

Hung trophies of the fight or chase:

A target there, a bugle here,

A battleaxe, a hunting-spear,

And broadswords, bows, and arrows store,

With the tusked trophies of the boar.

Here grins the wolf as when he died,

And there the wildcat’s brindled hide

The frontlet of the elk adorns,

Or mantles o’er the bison’s horns;

Pennons and flags defaced and stained,

That blackening streaks of blood retained,

And deerskins, dappled, dun, and white,

With otter’s fur and seal’s unite,

In rude and uncouth tapestry all,

To garnish forth the sylvan hall.

XXVIII

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.

And as the brand he poised and swayed,

‘I never knew but one,’ he said,

‘Whose stalwart arm might brook to wield

A blade like this in battlefield.’

She sighed, then smiled and took the word:

‘You see the guardian champion’s sword;

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,

But in the absent giant’s hold

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,

To whom, though more than kindred knew,

Young Ellen gave a mother’s due.

Meet welcome to her guest she made,

And every courteous rite was paid

That hospitality could claim,

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

At length his rank the stranger names,

‘The Knight of Snowdoun, James FitzJames;

Lord of a barren heritage,

Which his brave sires, from age to age,

By their good swords had held with toil;

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