Walter Scott - The Complete Poems of Sir Walter Scott

All in her night-robe loose she lay reclin’d,

And pensive read from tablet eburnine

Some strain that seem’d her inmost soul to find:

That favor’d strain was Surrey’s raptur’d line,

That fair and lovely form,

The Lady Geraldine.

XX

Slow roll’d the clouds upon the lovely form,

And swept the .goodly vision all away,

So royal envy roll’d the murky storm

O’er my beloved Master’s glorious day.

Thou jealous, ruthless tyrant! Heaven repay

On thee, and on thy children’s latest line,

The wild caprice of thy despotic sway,

The gory bridal bed, the plunder’d shrine,

The murder’d Surrey’s blood,

The tears of Geraldine!

XXI

Both Scots, and Southern chiefs, prolong

Applauses of Fitztraver’s song;

These hated Henry’s name as death,

And those still held the ancient faith.

Then from his seat, with lofty air,

Rose Harold, bard of brave St. Clair;

St. Clair, who, feasting high at Home,

Had with that lord to battle come.

Harold was born where restless seas

Howl round the storm-swept Orcades;

Where erst St. Clairs held princely sway

O’er isle and islet, strait and bay;,

Still nods their palace to its fall,

Thy pride and sorrow, fair Kirkwall!

Thence oft he mark’d fierce Pentland rave,

As if grim Odin rode her wave:

And watch’d the while, with visage pale,

And throbbing heart, the struggling sail;

For all of wonderful and wild

Had rapture for the lonely child.

XXII

And much of wild and wonderful

In these rude isles might fancy cull;

For thither came. in times afar,

Stern Lochlin’s sons of roving war.

The Norsemen, train’d to spoil and blood,

Skill’d to prepare the raven’s food;

Kings of the main their leaders brave,

Their barks the dragons of the wave.

And there in many a stormy vale,

The Scald had told his wondrous tale;

And many a Runic column high

Had witness’d grim idolatry.

And thus had Harold in his youth

Learn’d many a Saga’s rhyme uncouth,

Of that Sea-Snake, tremendous curl’d,

Whose monstrous circle girds the world;

Of those dread Maids, whose hideous yell

Maddens the battle’s bloody swell;

Of Chief, who, guided through the gloom

By the pale death-lights of the tomb,

Ransack’d the graves of warriors old,

Their falchions wrench’d from corpses’ hold,

Wak’d the deaf tomb with war’s alarms,

And bade the dead arise to arms!

With war and wonder all on flame,

To Roslin’s bowers young Harold came,

Where, by sweet glen and greenwood tree,

He learn’d a milder minstrelsy;

Yet something of the Northern spell

Mix’d with the softer numbers well.

XXIII

Harold

O listen, listen, ladies gay!

No haughty feat of arms I tell;

Soft is the note, and sad the lay,

That mourns the lovely Rosabelle.

“Moor, moor the barge, ye gallant crew!

And gentle ladye, deign to stay!

Rest thee in Castle Ravensheuch,

Nor tempt the stormy firth to-day.

“The blackening wave is edg’d with white:

To inch and rock the sea-mews fly;

The fishers have heard the Water-Sprite,

Whose screams forebode that wreck is nigh.

“Last night the gifted Seer did view

A wet shroud swathed round ladye gay;

Then stay thee, Fair, in Ravensheuch:

Why cross the gloomy firth today?”

“‘Tis not because Lord Lindesay’s heir

Tonight at Roslin leads the ball,

But that my ladye-mother there

Sits lonely in her castle-hall.

“‘Tis not because the ring they ride,

And Lindesay at the ring rides well,

But that my sire the wine will chide,

If ‘tis not fill’d by Rosabelle.”

O’er Roslin all that dreary night

A wondrous blaze was seen to gleam;

‘Twas broader than the watchfire’s light,

And redder than the bright moonbeam.

It glar’d on Roslin’s castled rock,

It ruddied all the copse wood glen;

‘Twas seen from Dryden’s groves of oak

And seen from cavern’d Hawthornden.

Seem’d all on fire that chapel proud,

Where Roslin’s chiefs uncoffin’d lie,

Each Baron, for a sable shroud,

Sheath’d in his iron panoply.

Seem’d all on fire within, around,

Deep sacristy and altar s pale;

Shone every plllar foliage bound,

And glimmer’d all the dead men’s mail.

Blaz’d battlement and pinnet high,

Blaz’d every rose-carved buttress fair,

So still they blaze when fate is nigh

The lordly line of high St. Clair.

There are twenty of Roslin’s barons bold

Lie buried within that proud chapelle;

Each one the holy vault doth hold,

But the sea holds lovely Rosabelle!

And each St. Clair was buried there,

With candle, with book, and with knell;

But the sea-caves rung, and the wild winds sung

The dirge of lovely Rosabelle.

XXIV

So sweet was Harold’s piteous lay,

Scarce mark’d the guests the darken’d hall,

Though, long before the sinking day,

A wondrous shade involv’d them all:

It was not eddying mist or fog,

Drain’d by the sun from fen or bog;

Of no eclipse had sages told;

And yet, as it came on apace,

Each one could scarce his neighbour’s face,

Could scarce his own stretch’d hand behold.

A secret horror check’d the feast,

And chill’d the soul of every guest;

Even the high Dame stood half aghast,

She knew some evil on the blast;

The elvish page fell to the ground,

And, shuddering, mutter’d, “Found! found! found!”

XXV

Then sudden,through the darken’d air,

A flash of lightning came;

So broad, so bright, so red the glare,

The castle seem’d on flame.

Glanc’d every rafter of the hall,

Glanc’d every shield upon the wall;

Each trophied beam, each sculptur’d stone,

Were instant seen, and instant gone;

Full through the guests’ bedazzled band

Resistless flash’d the levin-brand,

And fill’d the hall with smoldering smoke,

As on the elvish page it broke.

It broke, with thunder long and loud,

Dismay’d the brave, appall’d the proud,

From sea to sea the larum rung;

On Berwick wall, and at Carlisle withal,

To arms the startled warders sprung.

When ended was the dreadful roar,

The elvish dwarf was seen no more!

XXVI

Some heard a voice in Branksome Hall,

Some saw a sight, not seen by all

That dreadful voice was heard by some,

Cry, with loud summons, “Gylbin, come!”

And on the spot where burst the brand

Just where the page had flung him down,

Some saw an arm, and some a hand,

And some the waving of a gown.

The guests in silence pray’d and shook,

And terror dimm’d each lofty look.

But none of all the astonish’d train

Was so dismay’d as Deloraine

His blood did freeze, his brain did burn,

‘Twas fear’d his mind would ne’er return;

For he was speechless, ghastly, wan,

Like him of whom the story ran

Who spoke the spectre-hound in Man.

At length, by fits, he darkly told.

With broken hint, and shuddering cold,

That he had seen, right certainly.

A shape with amice wrapp’d around,

With a wrought Spanish baldric bound,

Like pilgrim from beyond the sea;

And knew — but how it matter’d not,

It was the wizard, Michael Scott.