Walter Scott - The Complete Poems of Sir Walter Scott

I heeded not the eddying surge,

Mine eye but saw the Trosachs’ gorge,

Mine ear but heard that sullen sound,

Which like an earthquake shook the ground,

And spoke the stern and desperate strife

That parts not but with parting life,

Seeming, to minstrel ear, to toll

The dirge of many a passing soul.

Nearer it comes—the dim-wood glen

The martial flood disgorged again,

But not in mingled tide;

The plaided warriors of the North

High on the mountain thunder forth

And overhang its side,

While by the lake below appears

The darkening cloud of Saxon spears.

At weary bay each shattered band,

Eying their foemen, sternly stand;

Their banners stream like tattered sail,

That flings its fragments to the gale,

And broken arms and disarray

Marked the fell havoc of the day.

XX

‘Viewing the mountain’s ridge askance,

The Saxons stood in sullen trance,

Till Moray pointed with his lance,

And cried: “Behold yon isle!—

See! none are left to guard its strand

But women weak, that wring the hand:

‘Tis there of yore the robber band

Their booty wont to pile;—

My purse, with bonnet-pieces store,

To him will swim a bowshot o’er,

And loose a shallop from the shore.

Lightly we’ll tame the war-wolf then,

Lords of his mate, and brood, and den.”

Forth from the ranks a spearman sprung,

On earth his casque and corselet rung,

He plunged him in the wave:—

All saw the deed,—the purpose knew,

And to their clamors Benvenue

A mingled echo gave;

The Saxons shout, their mate to cheer,

The helpless females scream for fear

And yells for rage the mountaineer.

‘T was then, as by the outcry riven,

Poured down at once the lowering heaven:

A whirlwind swept Loch Katrine’s breast,

Her billows reared their snowy crest.

Well for the swimmer swelled they high,

To mar the Highland marksman’s eye;

For round him showered, mid rain and hail,

The vengeful arrows of the Gael.

In vain.—He nears the isle—and lo!

His hand is on a shallop’s bow.

Just then a flash of lightning came,

It tinged the waves and strand with flame;

I marked Duncraggan’s widowed dame,

Behind an oak I saw her stand,

A naked dirk gleamed in her hand:—

It darkened,—but amid the moan

Of waves I heard a dying groan;—

Another flash!—the spearman floats

A weltering corse beside the boats,

And the stern matron o’er him stood,

Her hand and dagger streaming blood.

XXI

“‘Revenge! revenge!” the Saxons cried,

The Gaels’ exulting shout replied.

Despite the elemental rage,

Again they hurried to engage;

But, ere they closed in desperate fight,

Bloody with spurring came a knight,

Sprung from his horse, and from a crag

Waved ‘twixt the hosts a milk-white flag.

Clarion and trumpet by his side

Rung forth a truce-note high and wide,

While, in the Monarch’s name, afar

A herald’s voice forbade the war,

For Bothwell’s lord and Roderick bold

Were both, he said, in captive hold.’—

But here the lay made sudden stand,

The harp escaped the Minstrel’s hand!

Oft had he stolen a glance, to spy

How Roderick brooked his minstrelsy:

At first, the Chieftain, to the chime,

With lifted hand kept feeble time;

That motion ceased,—yet feeling strong

Varied his look as changed the song;

At length, no more his deafened ear

The minstrel melody can hear;

His face grows sharp,—his hands are clenched’

As if some pang his heartstrings wrenched;

Set are his teeth, his fading eye

Is sternly fixed on vacancy;

Thus, motionless and moanless, drew

His parting breath stout Roderick Dhu!—

Old Allan-bane looked on aghast,

While grim and still his spirit passed;

But when he saw that life was fled,

He poured his wailing o’er the dead.

XXII

Lament.

‘And art thou cold and lowly laid,

Thy foeman’s dread, thy people’s aid,

Breadalbane’s boast, Clan-Alpine’s shade!

For thee shall none a requiem say?—

For thee, who loved the minstrel’s lay,

For thee, of Bothwell’s house the stay,

The shelter of her exiled line,

E’en in this prison-house of thine,

I’ll wail for Alpine’s honored Pine!

‘What groans shall yonder valleys fill!

What shrieks of grief shall rend yon hill!

What tears of burning rage shall thrill,

When mourns thy tribe thy battles done,

Thy fall before the race was won,

Thy sword ungirt ere set of sun!

There breathes not clansman of thy line,

But would have given his life for thine.

O, woe for Alpine’s honoured Pine!

‘Sad was thy lot on mortal stage!—

The captive thrush may brook the cage,

The prisoned eagle dies for rage.

Brave spirit, do Dot scorn my strain!

And, when its notes awake again,

Even she, so long beloved in vain,

Shall with my harp her voice combine,

And mix her woe and tears with mine,

To wail Clan-Alpine’s honoured Pine.’

XXIII

Ellen the while, with bursting heart,

Remained in lordly bower apart,

Where played, with many-coloured gleams,

Through storied pane the rising beams.

In vain on gilded roof they fall,

And lightened up a tapestried wall,

And for her use a menial train

A rich collation spread in vain.

The banquet proud, the chamber gay,

Scarce drew one curious glance astray;

Or if she looked, ‘t was but to say,

With better omen dawned the day

In that lone isle, where waved on high

The dundeer’s hide for canopy;

Where oft her noble father shared

The simple meal her care prepared,

While Lufra, crouching by her side,

Her station claimed with jealous pride,

And Douglas, bent on woodland game,

Spoke of the chase to Malcolm Graeme,

Whose answer, oft at random made,

The wandering of his thoughts betrayed.

Those who such simple joys have known

Are taught to prize them when they ‘re gone.

But sudden, see, she lifts her head;

The window seeks with cautious tread.

What distant music has the power

To win her in this woful hour?

‘T was from a turret that o’erhung

Her latticed bower, the strain was sung.

XXIV

Lay of the Imprisoned Huntsman.

‘My hawk is tired of perch and hood,

My idle greyhound loathes his food,

My horse is weary of his stall,

And I am sick of captive thrall.

I wish I were as I have been,

Hunting the hart in forest green,

With bended bow and bloodhound free,

For that’s the life is meet for me.

I hate to learn the ebb of time

From yon dull steeple’s drowsy chime,

Or mark it as the sunbeams crawl,

Inch after inch, along the wall.

The lark was wont my matins ring,

The sable rook my vespers sing;

These towers, although a king’s they be,

Have not a hall of joy for me.

No more at dawning morn I rise,

And sun myself in Ellen’s eyes,

Drive the fleet deer the forest through,

And homeward wend with evening dew;

A blithesome welcome blithely meet,

And lay my trophies at her feet,

While fled the eve on wing of glee,—

That life is lost to love and me!’

XXV

The heart-sick lay was hardly said,

The listener had not turned her head,

It trickled still, the starting tear,