Walter Scott - The Complete Poems of Sir Walter Scott

He chased a stalwart stag in vain,

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

That courts and cities she had seen;

Ellen, though more her looks displayed

The simple grace of sylvan maid,

In speech and gesture, form and face,

Showed she was come of gentle race.

‘T were 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,

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 charmed rhymes we sing.’

She sung, and still a harp unseen

Filled up the symphony between.

XXXI

Song.

Soldier, rest! thy warfare o’er,

Sleep the sleep that knows not 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 daybreak 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.’

XXXII

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.

Song Continued.

‘Huntsman, rest! thy chase is done;

While our slumbrous spells assail ye,

Dream not, with the rising sun,

Bugles here shall sound reveille.

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 reveille.’

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.

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?

XXXIV

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 lustre 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.

XXXV

The wild rose, eglantine, and broom

Wasted around their rich perfume;

The birch-trees wept 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.

Table of Contents

The Island

I

At morn the blackcock trims his jetty wing,

‘T is 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!

II

Song.

‘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 battled line,

Good hawk and hound for sylvan 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’s and friendship’s smile

Be memory of the lonely isle!

III

Song Continued.

‘But if beneath yon southern sky

A plaided stranger roam,

Whose drooping crest and stifled sigh,

And sunken cheek and heavy eye,