Walter Scott - The Complete Poems of Sir Walter Scott

His lord’s command he ne’er withstood,

Though small his pleasure to do good.

As the corslet off he took,

The Dwarf espied the Mighty Book!

Much he marvell’d a knight of pride,

Like a book-bosom’d priest should ride:

He thought not to search or stanch the wound

Until the secret he had found.

IX

The iron band, the iron clasp,

Resisted long the elfin grasp:

For when the first he had undone

It closed as he the next begun.

Those iron chlsps, that iron band,

Would not yield to unchristen’d hand

Till he smear’d the cover o’er

With the Borderer’s curdled gore;

A moment then the volume spread,

And one short spell therein he read:

It had much of glamour might;

Could make a ladye seem a knight;

The cobwebs on a dungeon wall

Seem tapestry in lordly hall;

A nutshell seem a gilded barge,

A sheeling seem a palace large,

And youth seem age, and age seem youth:

All was delusion, nought was truth.

X

He had not read another spell,

When on his cheek a buffet fell,

So fierce, it stretch’d him on the plain

Beside the wounded Deloraine.

From the ground he rose dismay’d,

And shook his huge and matted head;

One word he mutter’d, and no more,

“Man of age, thou smitest sore!”

No more the Elfin Page durst try

Into the wondrous Book to pry;

The clasps, though smear’d with Christian gore,

Shut faster than they were before.

He hid it underneath his cloak.

Now, if you ask who gave the stroke,

I cannot tell, so mot I thrive;

It was not given by man alive.

XI

Unwillingly himself he address’d,

To do his master’s high behest:

He lifted up the living corse,

And laid it on the weary horse;

He led him into Branksome hall,

Before the beards of the warders all;

And each did after swear and say

There only pass’d a wain of hay.

He took him to Lord David’s tower,

Even to the Ladye’s secret bower;

And, but that stronger spells were spread,

And the door might not be opened,

He had laid him on her very bed.

Whate’er he did of gramarye

Was always done maliciously;

He flung the warrior on the ground,

And the blood well’d freshly from the wound.

XII

As he repass’d the outer court,

He spied the fair young child at sport:

He thought to train him to the wood;

For, at a word be it understood,

He was always for ill, and never for good.

Seem’d to the boy, some comrade gay

Led him forth to the woods to play;

On the drawbridge the warders stout

Saw a terrier and lurcher passing out.

XIII

He led the boy o’er bank and fell,

Until they came to a woodland brook

The running stream dissolv’d the spell,

And his own elvish shape he took.

Could he have had his pleasure vilde

He had crippled the joints of the noble child;

Or, with his fingers long and lean,

Had strangled him in fiendish spleen:

But his awful mother he had in dread,

And also his power was limited;

So he but scowl’d on the startled child,

And darted through the forest wild;

The woodland brook he bounding cross’d,

And laugh’d, and shouted, “Lost! lost! lost!”

XIV

Full sore amaz’d at the wondrous change,

And frighten’d, as a child might be,

At the wild yell and visage strange,

And the dark words of gramarye,

The child, amidst the forest bower,

Stood rooted like a lily flower;

And when at length, with trembling pace,

He sought to find where Branksome lay,

He fear’d to see that grisly face

Glare from some thicket on his way.

Thus, starting oft, he journey’d on,

And deeper in the wood is gone,

For aye the more he sought his way,

The farther still he went astray,

Until he heard the mountains round

Ring to the baying of a hound.

XV

And hark! and hark! the deep-mouth’d bark

Comes nigher still, and nigher:

Bursts on the path a dark bloodhound;

His tawny muzzle track’d the ground,

And his red eye shot fire.

Soon as the wilder’d child saw he,

He flew at him right furiouslie.

I ween you would have seen with joy

The bearing of the gallant boy,

When, worthy of his noble sire,

His wet cheek glow’d ‘twixt fear and ire!

He faced the bloodhound manfully,

And held his little bat on high;

So fierce he struck, the dog, afraid,

At cautious distance hoarsely bay’d

But still in act to spring;

When dash’d an archer through the glade,

And when he saw the hound was stay’d,

He drew his tough bowstring;

But a rough voice cried, “Shoot not, hoy!

Ho! shoot not, Edward; ‘tis a boy!”

XVI

The speaker issued from the wood,

And check’d his fellow’s surly mood,

And quell’d the ban-dog’s ire:

He was an English yeoman good,

And born in Lancashire.

Well could he hit a fallow-deer

Five hundred feet him fro;

With hand more true, and eye more clear,

No archer bended bow.

His coal-black hair, shorn round and close,

Set off his sunburn’d face:

Old England’s sign, St. George’s cross,

His barret-cap did grace;

His bugle-horn hung by his side,

All in a wolf-skin baldric tied;

And his short falchion, sharp and clear,

Had pierc’d the throat of many a deer.

XVII

His kirtle, made of forest green,

Reach’d scantly to his knee;

And, at his belt, of arrows keen

A furbish’d sheaf bore he;

His buckler, scarce in breadth a span,

No larger fence had he;

He never counted him a man,

Would strike below the knee:

His slacken’d bow was in his hand,

And the leash that was his bloodhound’s band.

XVIII

He would not do the fair child harm,

But held him with his powerful arm,

That he might neither fight nor flee;

For when the Red-Cross spied he,

The boy strove long and violently.

“Now, by St. George,” the archer cries,

“Edward, methinks we have a prize!

This boy’s fair face, and courage free,

Show he is come of high degree.”

XIX

“Yes! I am come of high degree,

For I am the heir of bold Buccleuch

And, if thou dost not set me free,

False Southron, thou shalt dearly rue!

For Walter of Harden shall come with speed,

And William of Deloraine, good at need,

And every Scott, from Esk to Tweed;

And, if thou dost not let me go,

Despite thy arrows and thy bow

I’ll have thee hang’d to feed the crow!”

XX

“Gramercy for thy goodwill, fair boy!

My mind was never set so high;

But if thou art chief of such a clan,

And art the son of such a man

And ever comest to thy command

Our wardens had need to keep good order;

My bow of yew to a hazel wand

Thou’lt make them work upon the Border.

Meantime, be pleased to come with me

For good Lord Dacre shalt thou see;

I think our work is well begun,

When we have taken thy father’s son.”

XXI

Although the child was led away

In Branksome still he seem’d to stay,

For so the Dwarf his part did play;

And, in the shape of that young boy,

He wrought the castle much annoy.

The comrades of the young Buccleuch