Walter Scott - The Complete Poems of Sir Walter Scott

Submitted to our kingdom’s laws.

The tidings of their leaders lost

Will soon dissolve the mountain host,

Nor would we that the vulgar feel,

For their Chief’s crimes, avenging steel.

Bear Mar our message, Braco, fly!’

He turned his steed,—‘My liege, I hie,

Yet ere I cross this lily lawn

I fear the broadswords will be drawn.’

The turf the flying courser spurned,

And to his towers the King returned.

XXXIII

Ill with King James’s mood that day

Suited gay feast and minstrel lay;

Soon were dismissed the courtly throng,

And soon cut short the festal song.

Nor less upon the saddened town

The evening sunk in sorrow down.

The burghers spoke of civil jar,

Of rumoured feuds and mountain war,

Of Moray, Mar, and Roderick Dhu,

All up in arms;—the Douglas too,

They mourned him pent within the hold,

‘Where stout Earl William was of old.’—

And there his word the speaker stayed,

And finger on his lip he laid,

Or pointed to his dagger blade.

But jaded horsemen from the west

At evening to the Castle pressed,

And busy talkers said they bore

Tidings of fight on Katrine’s shore;

At noon the deadly fray begun,

And lasted till the set of sun.

Thus giddy rumor shook the town,

Till closed the Night her pennons brown.

Table of Contents

The Guardroom

I

The sun, awakening, through the smoky air

Of the dark city casts a sullen glance,

Rousing each caitiff to his task of care,

Of sinful man the sad inheritance;

Summoning revellers from the lagging dance,

Scaring the prowling robber to his den;

Gilding on battled tower the warder’s lance,

And warning student pale to leave his pen,

And yield his drowsy eyes to the kind nurse of men.

What various scenes, and O, what scenes of woe,

Are witnessed by that red and struggling beam!

The fevered patient, from his pallet low,

Through crowded hospital beholds it stream;

The ruined maiden trembles at its gleam,

The debtor wakes to thought of gyve and jail,

‘The love-lore wretch starts from tormenting dream:

The wakeful mother, by the glimmering pale,

Trims her sick infant’s couch, and soothes his feeble wail.

II

At dawn the towers of Stirling rang

With soldier-step and weapon-clang,

While drums with rolling note foretell

Relief to weary sentinel.

Through narrow loop and casement barred,

The sunbeams sought the Court of Guard,

And, struggling with the smoky air,

Deadened the torches’ yellow glare.

In comfortless alliance shone

The lights through arch of blackened stone,

And showed wild shapes in garb of war,

Faces deformed with beard and scar,

All haggard from the midnight watch,

And fevered with the stern debauch;

For the oak table’s massive board,

Flooded with wine, with fragments stored,

And beakers drained, and cups o’erthrown,

Showed in what sport the night had flown.

Some, weary, snored on floor and bench;

Some labored still their thirst to quench;

Some, chilled with watching, spread their hands

O’er the huge chimney’s dying brands,

While round them, or beside them flung,

At every step their harness rung.

III

These drew not for their fields the sword,

Like tenants of a feudal lord,

Nor owned the patriarchal claim

Of Chieftain in their leader’s name;

Adventurers they, from far who roved,

To live by battle which they loved.

There the Italian’s clouded face,

The swarthy Spaniard’s there you trace;

The mountain-loving Switzer there

More freely breathed in mountain-air;

The Fleming there despised the soil

That paid so ill the labourer’s toil;

Their rolls showed French and German name;

And merry England’s exiles came,

To share, with ill-concealed disdain,

Of Scotland’s pay the scanty gain.

All brave in arms, well trained to wield

The heavy halberd, brand, and shield;

In camps licentious, wild, and bold;

In pillage fierce and uncontrolled;

And now, by holytide and feast,

From rules of discipline released.

IV

‘They held debate of bloody fray,

Fought ‘twixt Loch Katrine and Achray.

Fierce was their speech, and mid their words

‘Their hands oft grappled to their swords;

Nor sunk their tone to spare the ear

Of wounded comrades groaning near,

Whose mangled limbs and bodies gored

Bore token of the mountain sword,

Though, neighbouring to the Court of Guard,

Their prayers and feverish wails were heard,—

Sad burden to the ruffian joke,

And savage oath by fury spoke!—

At length up started John of Brent,

A yeoman from the banks of Trent;

A stranger to respect or fear,

In peace a chaser of the deer,

In host a hardy mutineer,

But still the boldest of the crew

When deed of danger was to do.

He grieved that day their games cut short,

And marred the dicer’s brawling sport,

And shouted loud, ‘Renew the bowl!

And, while a merry catch I troll,

Let each the buxom chorus bear,

Like brethren of the brand and spear.’

V

Soldier’s Song.

Our vicar still preaches that Peter and Poule

Laid a swinging long curse on the bonny brown bowl,

That there ‘s wrath and despair in the jolly blackjack,

And the seven deadly sins in a flagon of sack;

Yet whoop, Barnaby! off with thy liquor,

Drink upsees out, and a fig for the vicar!

Our vicar he calls it damnation to sip

The ripe ruddy dew of a woman’s dear lip,

Says that Beelzebub lurks in her kerchief so sly,

And Apollyon shoots darts from her merry black eye;

Yet whoop, Jack! kiss Gillian the quicker,

Till she bloom like a rose, and a fig for the vicar!

Our vicar thus preaches,—and why should he not?

For the dues of his cure are the placket and pot;

And ‘tis right of his office poor laymen to lurch

Who infringe the domains of our good Mother Church.

Yet whoop, bully-boys! off with your liquor,

Sweet Marjorie ‘s the word and a fig for the vicar!

VI

The warder’s challenge, heard without,

Stayed in mid-roar the merry shout.

A soldier to the portal went,—

‘Here is old Bertram, sirs, of Ghent;

And—beat for jubilee the drum!—

A maid and minstrel with him come.’

Bertram, a Fleming, gray and scarred,

Was entering now the Court of Guard,

A harper with him, and, in plaid

All muffled close, a mountain maid,

Who backward shrunk to ‘scape the view

Of the loose scene and boisterous crew.

‘What news?’ they roared:—’ I only know,

From noon till eve we fought with foe,

As wild and as untamable

As the rude mountains where they dwell;

On both sides store of blood is lost,

Nor much success can either boast.’—

‘But whence thy captives, friend? such spoil

As theirs must needs reward thy toil.

Old cost thou wax, and wars grow sharp;

Thou now hast glee-maiden and harp!

Get thee an ape, and trudge the land,

The leader of a juggler band.’

VII

‘No, comrade;—no such fortune mine.

After the fight these sought our line,

That aged harper and the girl,

And, having audience of the Earl,

Mar bade I should purvey them steed,