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 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, At each according pause was heard aloud 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 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 * But, when the sun his beacon red And faint, from farther distance borne, II As Chief, who hears his warder call, The dewdrops from his flanks he shook; 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. |