Walter Scott - The Complete Poems of Sir Walter Scott

How tardy was the Regent’s aid:

And you may guess the noble Dame

Durst not the secret prescience own,

Sprung from the art she might not name,

By which the coming help was known.

Clos’d was the compact, and agreed

That lists should be enclos’d with speed,

Beneath the castle, on a lawn:

They fix’d the morrow for the strife,

On foot, with Scottish axe and knife,

At the fourth hour from peep of dawn;

When Deloraine, from sickness freed,

Or else a champion in his stead,

Should for himself and chieftain stand

Against stout Musgrave, hand to hand.

XIV

I know right well, that, in their lay,

Full many minstrels sing and say,

Such combat should be made on horse,

On foaming steed, in full career,

With brand to aid, when as the spear

Should shiver in the course:

But he, the jovial Harper, taught

Me, yet a youth, how it was fought,

In guise which now I say;

He knew each ordinance and clause

Of Black Lord Archibald s battle-laws,

In the old Douglas’ day.

He brook’d not, he, that scoffing tongue

Should tax his minstrelsy with wrong,

Or call his song untrue:

For this, when they the goblet plied,

And such rude taunt had chaf’d his pride,

The Bard of Reull he slew.

On Teviot’s side, in fight they stood,

And tuneful hands were stain’d with blood;

Where still the thorn’s white branches wave,

Memorial o’er his rival’s grave.

XXXV

Why should I tell the rigid doom

That dragg’d my master to his tomb;

How Ousenam’s maidens tore their hair

Wept till their eyes were dead and dim

And wrung their hands for love of him

Who died at Jedwood Air?

He died! his scholars, one by one,

To the cold silent grave are gone;

And I, alas! survive alone,

To muse o’er rivalries of yore,

And grieve that I shall hear no more

The strains, with envy heard before;

For, with my minstrel brethren fled,

My jealousy of song is dead.

He paused: the listening dames again

Applaud the hoary Minstrel’s strain.

With many a word of kindly cheer,

In pity half, and half sincere,

Marvell’d the Duchess how so well

His legendary song could tell

Of ancient deeds, so long forgot;

Of feuds, whose memory was not;

Of forests, now laid waste and bare;

Of towers, which harbor now the hare;

Of manners, long since chang’d and gone;

Of chiefs, who under their grey stone

So long had slept, that fickle Fame

Had blotted from her rolls their name,

And twin’d round some new minion’s head

The fading wreath for which they bled;

In sooth,‘twas strange, this old man’s verse

Could call them from their marble hearse.

The Harper smil’d, well-pleas’d; for ne’er

Was flattery lost on poet’s ear:

A simple race! they waste their toil

For the vain tribute of a smile;

E’en when in age their flame expires,

Her dulcet breath can fan its fires:

Their drooping fancy wakes at praise,

And strives to trim the shortliv’d blaze.

Smil’d then, well pleas’d, the aged man

And thus his tale continued ran.

Table of Contents

I

Call it not vain; they do not err,

Who say, that when the Poet dies,

Mute Nature mourns her worshipper,

And celebrates his obsequies:

Who say, tall cliff and cavern lone

For the departed Bard make moan;

That mountains weep in crystal rill;

That flowers in tears of balm distill;

Through his lov’d groves that breezes sigh,

And oaks, in deeper groan, reply;

And rivers teach their rushing wave

To murmur dirges round his grave

II

Not that, in sooth, o’er mortal urn

Those things inanimate can mourn;

But that the stream, the wood, the gale

Is vocal with the plaintive wail

Of those, who, else forgotten long,

Liv’d in the poet’s faithful song,

And with the poet’s parting breath,

Whose memory feels a second death.

The Maid’s pale shade, who wails her lot,

That love, true love, should be forgot,

From rose and hawthorn shakes the tear

Upon the gentle Minstrel’s bier:

The phantom Knight, his glory fled,

Mourns o’er the field he heap’d with dead;

Mounts the wild blast that sweeps amain,

And shrieks along the battle-plain.

The Chief, whose antique crownlet long

Still sparkled in the feudal song,

Now, from the mountain’s misty throne,

Sees, in the thanedom once his own,

His ashes undistinguish’d lie,

His place, his power, his memory die:

His groans the lonely caverns fill,

His tears of rage impel the rill:

All mourn the Minstrel’s harp unstrung,

Their name unknown, their praise unsung.

III

Scarcely the hot assault was staid,

The terms of truce were scarcely made,

When they could spy, from Branksome’s towers,

The advancing march of martial powers.

Thick clouds of dust afar appear’d,

And trampling steeds were faintly heard;

Bright spears, above the columns dun,

Glanced momentary to the sun;

And feudal banners fair display’d

The bands that moved to Branksome’s aid.

IV

Vails not to tell each hardy clan,

From the fair Middle Marches came;

The Bloody Heart blaz’d in the van,

Announcing Douglas, dreaded name!

Vails not to tell what steeds did spurn,

Where the Seven Spears of Wedderburne

Their men in battle-order set;

And Swinton laid the lance in rest,

That tamed of yore the sparkling crest

Of Clarence’s Plantagenet.

Nor list I say what hundreds more,

From the rich Merse and Lammermore,

And Tweed’s fair borders to the war,

Beneath the crest of Old Dunbar.

And Hepburn’s mingled banners come,

Down the steep mountain glittering far

And shouting still, “A Home! a Home!”

V

Now squire and knight, from Branksome sent,

On many a courteous message went;

To every chief and lord they paid

Meet thanks for prompt and powerful aid:

And told them, how a truce was made.

And how a day of fight was ta’en

‘Twixt Musgrave and stout Deloraine;

And how the Ladye pray’d them dear,

That all would stay the fight to see,

And deign, in love and courtesy,

To taste of Branksome cheer.

Nor, while they bade to feast each Scot,

Were England’s noble Lords forgot

Himself, the hoary Seneschal

Rode forth, in seemly terms to call

Those gallant foes to Branksome Hall.

Accepted Howard, than whom knight

Was never dubb’d more bold in fight;

Nor, when from war and armor free,

More fam’d for stately courtesy:

But angry Dacre rather chose

In his pavilion to repose.

VI

Now, noble Dame, perchance you ask

How these two hostile armies met?

Deeming it were no easy task

To keep the truce which here was set;

Where martial spirits, all on fire,

Breathed only blood and mortal ire.

By mutual inroads, mutual blows,

By habit, and by nation, foes,

They met on Teviot’s strand;

They met and sate them mingled down,

Without a threat, without a frown,

As brothers meet in foreign land:

The hands the spear that lately grasp’d,

Still in the mailed gauntlet clasp’d,

Were interchang’d in greeting dear;

Visors were raised, and faces shown,