THE LADY OF THE LAKE

A POEM, IN SIX CANTOS1

INSCRIBED TO JOHN JAMES, MARQUIS OF ABERCORN

1810

CANTO FIRST

The Chase

HARP of the North! that mouldering long hast hung
On the witch-elm that shades Saint Fillan's spring,
And down the fitful breeze thy numbers flung,
Till envious ivy did around thee cling,
Muffling with verdant ringlet every string,-

O minstrel Harp, still must thine accents sleep? 'Mid rustling leaves and fountains murmuring,

Still must thy sweeter sounds their silence keep, Nor bid a warrior smile, nor teach a maid to weep?

Not thus, in ancient days of Caledon,

Was thy voice mute amid the festal crowd,
When lay of hopeless love, or glory won,
Aroused the fearful, or subdued the proud.

At each according pause was heard aloud
Thine ardent symphony sublime and high!
Fair dames and crested chiefs attention bow'd;
For still the burden of thy minstrelsy

Was Knighthood's dauntless deed, and Beauty's match

less eye.

1 To suit the division of this collection into two volumes, it has been found necessary to place The Lady of the Lake after The Bridal of Triermain. With this exception the arrangement of the poems is chronological.

O wake once more! how rude soe'er the hand
That ventures o'er thy magic maze to stray;
O wake once more! though scarce my skill command
Some feeble echoing of thine earlier lay:
Though harsh and faint, and soon to die away,
And all unworthy of thy nobler strain,
Yet if one heart throb higher at its sway,

The wizard note has not been touch'd in vain. Then silent be no more! Enchantress, wake again!

I

THE stag at eve had drunk his fill,

Where danced the moon on Monan's rill,*

And deep his midnight lair had made
In lone Glenartney's 1 hazel shade;

*

But, when the sun his beacon red
Had kindled on Benvoirlich's head,
The deep-mouth'd bloodhound's heavy bay
Resounded up the rocky way,

And faint, from farther distance borne,
Were heard the clanging hoof and horn.

II

As Chief, who hears his warder call,
"To arms! the foemen storm the wall,"
The antler'd monarch of the waste
Sprung from his heathery couch in haste.
But, ere his fleet career he took,

The dewdrops from his flanks he shook;
Like crested leader proud and high,
Toss'd his beam'd frontlet to the sky;
A moment gazed adown the dale,
A moment snuff'd the tainted gale,
A moment listen'd to the cry,

That thicken'd as the chase drew nigh;

1 The scene of the chase lies in the Perthshire Highlands. Glenartney is the valley of the Ruchill Water, a tributary of the Earn. Uam-Var, or Uaighmor, is a mountain to the north-east of Callander, between that village and Glenartney. The chase, beginning in Glenartney, sweeps past Callander, up the valley of the Teith, towards the Trosachs-some 20 miles westward from the starting-point.