Walter Scott - The Complete Poems of Sir Walter Scott

Barefooted, in his frock and hood.

His grizzled beard and matted hair

Obscured a visage of despair;

His naked arms and legs, seamed o’er,

The scars of frantic penance bore.

That monk, of savage form and face

The impending danger of his race

Had drawn from deepest solitude

Far in Benharrow’s bosom rude.

Not his the mien of Christian priest,

But Druid’s, from the grave released

Whose hardened heart and eye might brook

On human sacrifice to look;

And much, ‘t was said, of heathen lore

Mixed in the charms he muttered o’er.

The hallowed creed gave only worse

And deadlier emphasis of curse.

No peasant sought that Hermit’s prayer

His cave the pilgrim shunned with care,

The eager huntsman knew his bound

And in mid chase called off his hound;’

Or if, in lonely glen or strath,

The desert-dweller met his path

He prayed, and signed the cross between,

While terror took devotion’s mien.

V

Of Brian’s birth strange tales were told.

His mother watched a midnight fold,

Built deep within a dreary glen,

Where scattered lay the bones of men

In some forgotten battle slain,

And bleached by drifting wind and rain.

It might have tamed a warrior’s heart

To view such mockery of his art!

The knot-grass fettered there the hand

Which once could burst an iron band;

Beneath the broad and ample bone,

That bucklered heart to fear unknown,

A feeble and a timorous guest,

The fieldfare framed her lowly nest;

There the slow blindworm left his slime

On the fleet limbs that mocked at time;

And there, too, lay the leader’s skull

Still wreathed with chaplet, flushed and full,

For heathbell with her purple bloom

Supplied the bonnet and the plume.

All night, in this sad glen the maid

Sat shrouded in her mantle’s shade:

She said no shepherd sought her side,

No hunter’s hand her snood untied.

Yet ne’er again to braid her hair

The virgin snood did Alive wear;

Gone was her maiden glee and sport,

Her maiden girdle all too short,

Nor sought she, from that fatal night,

Or holy church or blessed rite

But locked her secret in her breast,

And died in travail, unconfessed.

VI

Alone, among his young compeers,

Was Brian from his infant years;

A moody and heart-broken boy,

Estranged from sympathy and joy

Bearing each taunt which careless tongue

On his mysterious lineage flung.

Whole nights he spent by moonlight pale

To wood and stream his teal, to wail,

Till, frantic, he as truth received

What of his birth the crowd believed,

And sought, in mist and meteor fire,

To meet and know his Phantom Sire!

In vain, to soothe his wayward fate,

The cloister oped her pitying gate;

In vain the learning of the age

Unclasped the sable-lettered page;

Even in its treasures he could find

Food for the fever of his mind.

Eager he read whatever tells

Of magic, cabala, and spells,

And every dark pursuit allied

To curious and presumptuous pride;

Till with fired brain and nerves o’erstrung,

And heart with mystic horrors wrung,

Desperate he sought Benharrow’s den,

And hid him from the haunts of men.

VII

The desert gave him visions wild,

Such as might suit the spectre’s child.

Where with black cliffs the torrents toil,

He watched the wheeling eddies boil,

Jill from their foam his dazzled eyes

Beheld the River Demon rise:

The mountain mist took form and limb

Of noontide hag or goblin grim;

The midnight wind came wild and dread,

Swelled with the voices of the dead;

Far on the future battle-heath

His eye beheld the ranks of death:

Thus the lone Seer, from mankind hurled,

Shaped forth a disembodied world.

One lingering sympathy of mind

Still bound him to the mortal kind;

The only parent he could claim

Of ancient Alpine’s lineage came.

Late had he heard, in prophet’s dream,

The fatal Ben-Shie’s boding scream;

Sounds, too, had come in midnight blast

Of charging steeds, careering fast

Along Benharrow’s shingly side,

Where mortal horseman ne’er might ride;

The thunderbolt had split the pine,—

All augured ill to Alpine’s line.

He girt his loins, and came to show

The signals of impending woe,

And now stood prompt to bless or ban,

As bade the Chieftain of his clan.

VIII

‘T was all prepared;—and from the rock

A goat, the patriarch of the flock,

Before the kindling pile was laid,

And pierced by Roderick’s ready blade.

Patient the sickening victim eyed

The lifeblood ebb in crimson tide

Down his clogged beard and shaggy limb,

Till darkness glazed his eyeballs dim.

The grisly priest, with murmuring prayer,

A slender crosslet framed with care,

A cubit’s length in measure due;

The shaft and limbs were rods of yew,

Whose parents in Inch-Cailliach wave

Their shadows o’er Clan-Alpine’s grave,

And, answering Lomond’s breezes deep,

Soothe many a chieftain’s endless sleep.

The Cross thus formed he held on high,

With wasted hand and haggard eye,

And strange and mingled feelings woke,

While his anathema he spoke:—

IX

‘Woe to the clansman who shall view

This symbol of sepulchral yew,

Forgetful that its branches grew

Where weep the heavens their holiest dew

On Alpine’s dwelling low!

Deserter of his Chieftain’s trust,

He ne’er shall mingle with their dust,

But, from his sires and kindred thrust,

Each clansman’s execration just

Shall doom him wrath and woe.’

He paused; — the word the vassals took,

With forward step and fiery look,

On high their naked brands they shook,

Their clattering targets wildly strook;

And first in murmur low,

Then like the billow in his course,

That far to seaward finds his source,

And flings to shore his mustered force,

Burst with loud roar their answer hoarse,

‘Woe to the traitor, woe!’

Ben-an’s gray scalp the accents knew,

The joyous wolf from covert drew,

The exulting eagle screamed afar,—

They knew the voice of Alpine’s war.

X

The shout was hushed on lake and fell,

The Monk resumed his muttered spell:

Dismal and low its accents came,

The while he scathed the Cross with flame;

And the few words that reached the air,

Although the holiest name was there,

Had more of blasphemy than prayer.

But when he shook above the crowd

Its kindled points, he spoke aloud:—

‘Woe to the wretch who fails to rear

At this dread sign the ready spear!

For, as the flames this symbol sear,

His home, the refuge of his fear,

A kindred fate shall know;

Far o’er its roof the volumed flame

Clan-Alpine’s vengeance shall proclaim,

While maids and matrons on his name

Shall call down wretchedness and shame,

And infamy and woe.’

Then rose the cry of females, shrill

As goshawk’s whistle on the hill,

Denouncing misery and ill,

Mingled with childhood’s babbling trill

Of curses stammered slow;

Answering with imprecation dread,

‘Sunk be his home in embers red!

And cursed be the meanest shed

That o’er shall hide the houseless head

We doom to want and woe!’