Walter Scott - The Complete Poems of Sir Walter Scott

And, though mine ear is all unstrung,

Still, still it loves the Lowland tongue.

‘For O my sweet William was forester true,

He stole poor Blanche’s heart away!

His coat it was all of the greenwood hue,

And so blithely he trilled the Lowland lay!

‘It was not that I meant to tell …

But thou art wise and guessest well.’

Then, in a low and broken tone,

And hurried note, the song went on.

Still on the Clansman fearfully

She fixed her apprehensive eye,

Then turned it on the Knight, and then

Her look glanced wildly o’er the glen.

XXV

‘The toils are pitched, and the stakes are set,—

Ever sing merrily, merrily;

The bows they bend, and the knives they whet,

Hunters live so cheerily.

It was a stag, a stag of ten,

Bearing its branches sturdily;

He came stately down the glen,—

Ever sing hardily, hardily.

‘It was there he met with a wounded doe,

She was bleeding deathfully;

She warned him of the toils below,

O. so faithfully, faithfully!

‘He had an eye, and he could heed,—

Ever sing warily, warily;

He had a foot, and he could speed,—

Hunters watch so narrowly.’

XXVI

FitzJames’s mind was passion-tossed,

When Ellen’s hints and fears were lost;

But Murdoch’s shout suspicion wrought,

And Blanche’s song conviction brought.

Not like a stag that spies the snare,

But lion of the hunt aware,

He waved at once his blade on high,

‘Disclose thy treachery, or die!’

Forth at hell speed the Clansman flew,

But in his race his bow he drew.

The shaft just grazed FitzJames’s crest,

And thrilled in Blanche’s faded breast.—

Murdoch of Alpine! prove thy speed,

For ne’er had Alpine’s son such need;

With heart of fire, and foot of wind,

The fierce avenger is behind!

Fate judges of the rapid strife—

The forfeit death—the prize is life;

Thy kindred ambush lies before,

Close couched upon the heathery moor;

Them couldst thou reach!—it may not be

Thine ambushed kin thou ne’er shalt see,

The fiery Saxon gains on thee!—

Resistless speeds the deadly thrust,

As lightning strikes the pine to dust;

With foot and hand FitzJames must strain

Ere he can win his blade again.

Bent o’er the fallen with falcon eye,

He grimly smiled to see him die,

Then slower wended back his way,

Where the poor maiden bleeding lay.

XXVII

She sat beneath the birchen tree,

Her elbow resting on her knee;

She had withdrawn the fatal shaft,

And gazed on it, and feebly laughed;

Her wreath of broom and feathers gray,

Daggled with blood, beside her lay.

The Knight to stanch the life-stream tried,—

‘Stranger, it is in vain!’ she cried.

‘This hour of death has given me more

Of reason’s power than years before;

For, as these ebbing veins decay,

My frenzied visions fade away.

A helpless injured wretch I die,

And something tells me in thine eye

That thou wert mine avenger born.

Seest thou this tress?—O. still I ‘ve worn

This little tress of yellow hair,

Through danger, frenzy, and despair!

It once was bright and clear as thine,

But blood and tears have dimmed its shine.

I will not tell thee when ‘t was shred,

Nor from what guiltless victim’s head,—

My brain would turn!—but it shall wave

Like plumage on thy helmet brave,

Till sun and wind shall bleach the stain,

And thou wilt bring it me again.

I waver still. —O God! more bright

Let reason beam her parting light!—

O. by thy knighthood’s honored sign,

And for thy life preserved by mine,

When thou shalt see a darksome man,

Who boasts him Chief of Alpine’s Clan,

With tartars broad and shadowy plume,

And hand of blood, and brow of gloom

Be thy heart bold, thy weapon strong,

And wreak poor Blanche of Devan’s wrong!—

They watch for thee by pass and fell …

Avoid the path … O God! … farewell.’

XXVIII

A kindly heart had brave FitzJames;

Fast poured his eyes at pity’s claims;

And now, with mingled grief and ire,

He saw the murdered maid expire.

‘God, in my need, be my relief,

As I wreak this on yonder Chief!’

A lock from Blanche’s tresses fair

He blended with her bridegroom’s hair;

The mingled braid in blood he dyed,

And placed it on his bonnet-side:

‘By Him whose word is truth, I swear,

No other favour will I wear,

Till this sad token I imbrue

In the best blood of Roderick Dhu!—

But hark! what means yon faint halloo?

The chase is up,—but they shall know,

The stag at bay ‘s a dangerous foe.’

Barred from the known but guarded way,

Through copse and cliffs FitzJames must stray,

And oft must change his desperate track,

By stream and precipice turned back.

Heartless, fatigued, and faint, at length,

From lack of food and loss of strength

He couched him in a thicket hoar

And thought his toils and perils o’er:—

‘Of all my rash adventures past,

This frantic feat must prove the last!

Who e’er so mad but might have guessed

That all this Highland hornet’s nest

Would muster up in swarms so soon

As e’er they heard of bands at Doune?—

Like bloodhounds now they search me out,—

Hark, to the whistle and the shout!—

If farther through the wilds I go,

I only fall upon the foe:

I’ll couch me here till evening gray,

Then darkling try my dangerous way.’

XXIX

The shades of eve come slowly down,

The woods are wrapt in deeper brown,

The owl awakens from her dell,

The fox is heard upon the fell;

Enough remains of glimmering light

To guide the wanderer’s steps aright,

Yet not enough from far to show

His figure to the watchful foe.

With cautious step and ear awake,

He climbs the crag and threads the brake;

And not the summer solstice there

Tempered the midnight mountain air,

But every breeze that swept the wold

Benumbed his drenched limbs with cold.

In dread, in danger, and alone,

Famished and chilled, through ways unknown,

Tangled and steep, he journeyed on;

Till, as a rock’s huge point he turned,

A watchfire close before him burned.

XXX

Beside its embers red and clear

Basked in his plaid a mountaineer;

And up he sprung with sword in hand,—

‘Thy name and purpose! Saxon, stand!’

‘A stranger.’ ‘What cost thou require?’

‘Rest and a guide, and food and fire

My life’s beset, my path is lost,

The gale has chilled my limbs with frost.’

‘Art thou a friend to Roderick?’ ‘No.’

‘Thou dar’st not call thyself a foe?’

‘I dare! to him and all the band

He brings to aid his murderous hand.’

‘Bold words!—but, though the beast of game

The privilege of chase may claim,

Though space and law the stag we lend

Ere hound we slip or bow we bend

Who ever recked, where, how, or when,

The prowling fox was trapped or slain?

Thus treacherous scouts,—yet sure they lie

Who say thou cam’st a secret spy!’—

‘They do, by heaven!—come Roderick Dhu

And of his clan the boldest two

And let me but till morning rest,

I write the falsehood on their crest.’

If by the blaze I mark aright