Walter Scott - The Complete Poems of Sir Walter Scott

Jesu Maria, shield us well!

No living wight, save the Ladye alone,

Had dared to cross the threshold stone.

II

The tables were drawn, it was idlesse all;

Knight and page, and household squire,

Loiter’d through the lofty hall,

Or crowded round the ample fire:

The staghours, weary with the chase,

Lay stretch’d upon the rusy foloor

And urged, in dreams, the forest race,

From Teviot-stone to Eskdale-moor.

III

Nine-and-twenty knights of fame

Hung their shields in Branksome-Hall,

Nine-and-twenty squires of name

Brought them their steeds to bower from stall;

Nine-and-twenty yeomen tall

Waited, duteous, on them all;

They were all knights of mettle true,

Kinsmen to the bold Buccleuch.

IV

Ten of them were sheathed in steel,

With belted sword, and spur on heel:

They quitted not their harness bright,

Neither by day, nor yet by night:

They lay down to rest,

With corslet laced,

Pillow’d on buckler cold and hard;

They carved at the meal

With gloves of steel,

And they drank the red wine through the helmet barr’d.

V

Ten squires, ten yeomen, mail-clad men,

Waited the beck of the warders ten;

Thirty steeds, both fleet and wight,

Stood saddled in stable day and night,

Barbed with frontlet of steel, I trow,

And with Jedwood-axe at saddlebow;

A hundred more fed free in stall:

Such was the custom of Branksome-Hall.

VI

Why do these steeds stand ready dight?

Why watch these warriors, arm’d, by night?

They watch, to hear the bloodhound baying?

They watch to hear the war-horn braying;

To see St. George’s red cross streaming,

To see the midnight beacon gleaming:

They watch, against Southern force and guile,

Lest Scroop, or Howard, or Percy’s powers,

Threaten Branksome’s lordly towers,

From Warkwork, or Naworth, or merry Carlisle.

VII

Such is the custom of Branksome-Hall

Many a valiant knight is here;

But he, the chieftain of them all,

His sword hangs rusting on the wall,

Beside his broken spear.

Bards long shall tell

How Lord Walter fell.

When startled burghers fled afar,

The furies of the Border war;

When the streets of high Dunedin

Saw lances gleam and falchion redden,

And heard the slogan’s deadly yell,

Then the Chef of Branksome fell.

VIII

Can piety the discord heal,

Or stanch the death-feud’s enmity?

Can Christian lore, can patriot zeal,

Can love of blessed charity?

No! vainly to each holy shrine,

In mutual pilgrimage they drew;

Implored, in vain, the grace divine

For chiefs, their own red falchions slew;

While Cessford owns the rule of Carr,

While Ettrick boasts the line of Scott,

The slaughter’d chiefs, the mortal jar,

The havoc of the feudal war,

Shall never, never be forgot!

IX

In sorrow o’er Lord Walter’s bier

The warlike foresters had bent;

And many a flower,and many a tear,

Old Teviot’s maids and matrons lent:

But o’er her warrior’s bloody bier

The Ladye dropp’d nor flowers nor tear!

Vengeance, deep-brooding o’er the slain

Had lock’d the source of softer woe;

And burning pride, and high disdain,

Forbade the rising tear to flow;

Until, amid his sorrowing clan,

Her son lisp’d from the nurse’s knee,

“And if I live to be a man,

My father’s death revenged shall be!”

Then fast the mother’s tears did seek

To dew the infant’s kindling cheek.

X

All loose her negligent attire,

All loose her golden hair,

Hung Margaret o’er her slaughter’d sire,

And wept in wild despair,

But not alone the bitter tear

Had filial grief supplied;

For hopeless love, and anxious fear,

Had lent their mingled tide:

Nor in her mother’s alter’d eye

Dared she to look for sympathy.

Her lover, ‘gainst her father’s clan,

With Carr in arms had stood,

When Mathouse-burn to Melrose ran,

All purple with their blood;

And well she knew, her mother dread,

Before Lord Cranstoun she should wed,

Would see her on her dying bed.

XI

Of noble race the Ladye came

Her father was a clerk of fame,

Of Bethune’s line of Picardie;

He learn’d the art that none may name,

In Padua, far beyond the sea.

Men said, he changed his mortal frame

By feat of magic mystery;

For when, in studious mode, he paced

St. Andrew’s cloister’d hall,

His form no darkening shadow traced

Upon the sunny wall!

XII

And of his skill, as bards avow,

He taught that Ladye fair,

Till to her bidding she could bow

The viewless forms of air.

And now she sits in secret bower,

In old Lord David’s western tower,

And listens to a heavy sound,

That moans the mossy turrets round.

Is it the roar of Teviot’s tide,

That chafes against the scaur’s red side?

Is it the wind that swings the oaks?

Is it the echo from the rocks?

What may it be, the heavy sound,

That moans old Branksome’s turrets round?

XIII

At the sullen, moaning sound,

The bandogs bay and howl;

And, from the turrets round,

Loud whoops the startled owl.

In the hall, both squire and knight

Swore that a storm was near,

And looked forth to view the night,

But the night was still and clear!

XIV

From the sound of Teviot’s tide,

Chafing with the mountain’s side,

From the groan of the wind-swung oak,

From the sullen echo of the rock,

From the voice of the coming storm,

The Ladye knew it well!

It was the Spirit of the Flood that spoke

And he called on the Spirit of the Fell.

XV

River Spirit

“Sleep’st thou, brother?”

Mountain Spirit

“Brother, nay,

On my hills the moonbeams play.

From Craikcross to Skelfhill-pen,

By every rill, in every glen,

Merry elves their morris pacing,

To aerial minstrelry

Emerald rings on brown heath tracing,

Trip it deft and merrily.

Up, and mark their nimble feet!

Up, and list their music sweet!”

XVI

River Spirit

“Tears of an imprisoned maiden

Mix with my polluted stream;

Margaret of Branksome, sorrow-laden,

Mourns beneath the moon’s pale beam.

Tell me, thou, who view’st the stars,

When shall cease these feudal jars?

What shall be the maiden’s fate?

Who shall be the maiden’s mate?”

XVII

Mountain Spirit

“Arthur’s slow wain his course doth roll

In utter darkness round the pole;

The Northern Bear lowers black and grim;

Orion’s studded belt is dim;

Twinkling faint, and distant far,

Shimmers through mist each planet star;

Ill may I read their high decree!

But no kind influence deign they shower

On Teviot’s tide, and Branksome’s tower,

Till pride be quell’d, and love be free.”

XVIII

The unearthly voices ceast,

And the heavy sound was still;

It died on the river’s breast,

It died on the side of the hill.

But round Lord David’s tower

The sound still floated near;

For it rung in the Ladye’s bower,

And it rung in the Ladye’s ear.