Walter Scott - The Complete Poems of Sir Walter Scott

At Duncan’s hest your blades that drew,

To arms, and guard that orphan’s head!

Let babes and women wail the dead.’

Then weapon-clang and martial call

Resounded through the funeral hall,

While from the walls the attendant band

Snatched sword and targe with hurried hand;

And short and flitting energy

Glanced from the mourner’s sunken eye,

As if the sounds to warrior dear

Might rouse her Duncan from his bier.

But faded soon that borrowed force;

Grief claimed his right, and tears their course.

XIX

Benledi saw the Cross of Fire,

It glanced like lightning up Strath-Ire.

O’er dale and hill the summons flew,

Nor rest nor pause young Angus knew;

The tear that gathered in his eye

He deft the mountain-breeze to dry;

Until, where Teith’s young waters roll

Betwixt him and a wooded knoll

That graced the sable strath with green,

The chapel of Saint Bride was seen.

Swoln was the stream, remote the bridge,

But Angus paused not on the edge;

Though the clerk waves danced dizzily,

Though reeled his sympathetic eye,

He dashed amid the torrent’s roar:

His right hand high the crosslet bore,

His left the poleaxe grasped, to guide

And stay his footing in the tide.

He stumbled twice,—the foam splashed high,

With hoarser swell the stream raced by;

And had he fallen,—forever there,

Farewell Duncraggan’s orphan heir!

But still, as if in parting life,

Firmer he grasped the Cross of strife,

Until the opposing bank he gained,

And up the chapel pathway strained.

A blithesome rout that morning-tide

Had sought the chapel of Saint Bride.

Her troth Tombea’s Mary gave

To Norman, heir of Armandave,

And, issuing from the Gothic arch,

The bridal now resumed their march.

In rude but glad procession came

Bonneted sire and coif-clad dame;

And plaided youth, with jest and jeer

Which snooded maiden would not hear:

And children, that, unwitting why,

Lent the gay shout their shrilly cry;

And minstrels, that in measures vied

Before the young and bonny bride,

Whose downcast eye and cheek disclose

The tear and blush of morning rose.

With virgin step and bashful hand

She held the kerchief’s snowy band.

The gallant bridegroom by her side

Beheld his prize with victor’s pride.

And the glad mother in her ear

Was closely whispering word of cheer.

XXI

Who meets them at the churchyard gate?

The messenger of fear and fate!

Haste in his hurried accent lies,

And grief is swimming in his eyes.

All dripping from the recent flood,

Panting and travel-soiled he stood,

The fatal sign of fire and sword

Held forth, and spoke the appointed word:

‘The muster-place is Lanrick mead;

Speed forth the signal! Norman, speed!’

And must he change so soon the hand

Just linked to his by holy band,

For the fell Cross of blood and brand?

And must the day so blithe that rose,

And promised rapture in the close,

Before its setting hour, divide

The bridegroom from the plighted bride?

O fatal doom’—it must! it must!

Clan-Alpine’s cause, her Chieftain’s trust,

Her summons dread, brook no delay;

Stretch to the race,—away! away!

XXII

Yet slow he laid his plaid aside,

And lingering eyed his lovely bride,

Until he saw the starting tear

Speak woe he might not stop to cheer:

Then, trusting not a second look,

In haste he sped hind up the brook,

Nor backward glanced till on the heath

Where Lubnaig’s lake supplies the Teith,—

What in the racer’s bosom stirred?

The sickening pang of hope deferred,

And memory with a torturing train

Of all his morning visions vain.

Mingled with love’s impatience, came

The manly thirst for martial fame;

The stormy joy of mountaineers

Ere yet they rush upon the spears;

And zeal for Clan and Chieftain burning,

And hope, from well-fought field returning,

With war’s red honors on his crest,

To clasp his Mary to his breast.

Stung by such thoughts, o’er bank and brae,

Like fire from flint he glanced away,

While high resolve and feeling strong

Burst into voluntary song.

XXIII

Song.

The heath this night must be my bed,

The bracken curtain for my head,

My lullaby the warder’s tread,

Far, far, from love and thee, Mary;

Tomorrow eve, more stilly laid,

My couch may be my bloody plaid,

My vesper song thy wail, sweet maid!

It will not waken me, Mary!

I may not, dare not, fancy now

The grief that clouds thy lovely brow,

I dare not think upon thy vow,

And all it promised me, Mary.

No fond regret must Norman know;

When bursts Clan-Alpine on the foe,

His heart must be like bended bow,

His foot like arrow free, Mary.

A time will come with feeling fraught,

For, if I fall in battle fought,

Thy hapless lover’s dying thought

Shall be a thought on thee, Mary.

And if returned from conquered foes,

How blithely will the evening close,

How sweet the linnet sing repose,

To my young bride and me, Mary!

XXIV

Not faster o’er thy heathery braes

Balquidder, speeds the midnight blaze,

Rushing in conflagration strong

Thy deep ravines and dells along,

Wrapping thy cliffs in purple glow,

And reddening the dark lakes below;

Nor faster speeds it, nor so far,

As o’er thy heaths the voice of war.

The signal roused to martial coil

The sullen margin of Loch Voil,

Waked still Loch Doine, and to the source

Alarmed, Balvaig, thy swampy course;

Thence southward turned its rapid road

Adown Strath-Gartney’s valley broad

Till rose in arms each man might claim

A portion in Clan-Alpine’s name,

From the gray sire, whose trembling hand

Could hardly buckle on his brand,

To the raw boy, whose shaft and bow

Were yet scarce terror to the crow.

Each valley, each sequestered glen,

Mustered its little horde of men

That met as torrents from the height

In Highland dales their streams unite

Still gathering, as they pour along,

A voice more loud, a tide more strong,

Till at the rendezvous they stood

By hundreds prompt for blows and blood,

Each trained to arms since life began,

Owning no tie but to his clan,

No oath but by his chieftain’s hand,

No law but Roderick Dhu’s command.

XXV

That summer morn had Roderick Dhu

Surveyed the skirts of Benvenue,

And sent his scouts o’er hill and heath,

To view the frontiers of Menteith.

All backward came with news of truce;

Still lay each martial Graeme and Bruce,

In Rednock courts no horsemen wait,

No banner waved on Cardross gate,

On Duchray’s towers no beacon shone,

Nor scared the herons from Loch Con;

All seemed at peace.—Now wot ye wily

The Chieftain with such anxious eye,

Ere to the muster he repair,

This western frontier scanned with care?—

In Benvenue’s most darksome cleft,

A fair though cruel pledge was left;

For Douglas, to his promise true,

That morning from the isle withdrew,

And in a deep sequestered dell

Had sought a low and lonely cell.

By many a bard in Celtic tongue

Has Coir-nan-Uriskin been sung

A softer name the Saxons gave,