Well showed the elder lady's mien, That courts and cities she had seen; Ellen, though more lter looks displayed The simple grace of sylvan maid, In speech and gesture, form and face, Showed she was come of gentle race; "Twere strange in ruder rank to find f Such looks, such manners, and such mind, Each hint the Knight of Snowdoun gave, Dame Margaret heard with silence grave; Or Ellen, innocently gay,

Turned all inquiry light away.

"Weird women we! by dale and down,
We dwell afar from tower and town.
We stem the flood, we ride the blast,
On wandering knights our spells we cast;
While viewless minstrels touch the string,
'Tis thus our charmed rhymes we sing.'
She sang, and still a harp unseen
Filled up the symphony between.

XXXI.

SONG.

"Soldier, rest! thy warfare o'er,

"

Sleep the sleep that knows not breaking; Dream of battle fields no more,

Days of danger, nights of waking.

In our isle's enchanted hall,

Hands unseen thy couch are strewing,

Fairy strains of music fall,

Every sense in slumber dewing.

Soldier, rest! thy warfare o'er,

Dream of fighting fields no more;

Sleep the sleep that knows not breaking, Morn of toil nor night of waking.

"No rude sound shall reach thine ear, Armour's clang, or war-steed champing, Trump nor pibroch summon here

Mustering clan, or squadron tramping. Yet the lark's shrill fife may come At the daybreak from the fallow, And the bittern sound his drum, Booming from the sedgy shallow. Ruder sounds shall none be near, Guards nor warders challenge here,

Here's no war-steed's neigh and champing
Shouting clans or squadrons stamping."

XXXIL

She paused then, blushing, led the lay
To grace the stranger of the day;
Her mellow notes awhile prolong
The cadence of the flowing song,
Till to her lips in measured frame
The minstrel verse spontaneous came.

BONG-continued.

"Huntsman, rest! thy chase is done,
While our slumberous spells assail ye,
Dream not, with the rising sun,
Bugles here shall sound reveillé.
Sleep! the deer is in his den;

Sleep! thy hounds are by thee lying;
Sleep! nor dream in yonder glen,
How thy gallant steed lay dying.
Huntsman, rest! thy chase is done,
Think not of the rising sun,
For at dawning to assail ye,
Here no bugles sound reveillé."

XXXIII.

The hall was cleared- the Stranger's bed
Was there of mountain heather spread,
Where oft an hundred guests had lain,
And dreamed their forest sports again.
But vainly did the heath-flower shed
Its moorland fragrance round his head;
Not Ellen's spell had lulled to rest
The fever of his troubled breast.
In broken dreams the image rose
Of varied perils, pains, and woes;
His steed now flounders in the brake,
Now sinks his barge upon the lake;
Now leader of a broken host

His standard falls, his honour's lost.

Then-from my couch may heavenly might

Chase that worst phantom of the night!

Again returned the scenes of youth,

Of confident undoubting truth;

Again his soul he interchanged

With friends whose hearts were long estranged.

They come, in dim procession led,
The cold, the faithless, and the dead;
As warm each hand, each brow as gay,
As if they parted yesterday.

And doubt distracts him at the view,
Oh were his senses false or true!
Dreamed he of death, or broken vow,
Or is it all a vision now!

XXXIV.

At length, with Ellen in a grove,
He seemed to walk, and speak of love;
She listened with a blush and sigh;
His suit was warm, his hopes were high.
He sought her yielded hand to clasp,
And a cold gauntlet met his grasp;
The phantom's sex was changed and gone,
Upon its head a helmet shone;

Slowly enlarged to giant size,

With darkened cheek and threatening eyes,

The grisly visage, stern and hoar,

To Ellen still a likeness bore.

He woke, and, panting with affright,
Recalled the vision of the night.

The hearth's decaying brands were red,
And deep and dusky lustre shed,
Half showing, half concealing all

The uncouth trophies of the hall.
Mid those the stranger fixed his eye
Where that huge falchion hung on high,

And thoughts on thoughts, a countless throng, Rushed, chasing countless thoughts along, Until, the giddy whirl to cure,

He rose, and sought the moonshine pure.

XXXV.

The wild rose, eglantine, and broom,
Wafted around their rich perfume;
The birch-trees wept in fragrant balm,
The aspens slept beneath the calm;
The silver light, with quivering glance,
Played on the water's still expanse-
Wild were the heart whose passion's sway
Could rage beneath the sober ray!
He felt its calm, that warrior guest,

While thus he communed with his breast:--

"Why is it at each turn I trace
Some memory of that exiled race?
Can I not mountain maiden spy,
But she must bear the Douglas eye?
Can I not view a highland brand,
But it must match the Douglas hand?
Can I not frame a fevered dream,
But still the Douglas is the theme?-
I'll dream no more by manly mind
Not even in sleep is will resigned.
My midnight orison said o'er,

I'll turn to rest, and dream no more."
His midnight orison he told,
A prayer with every bead of gold,
Consigned to heaven his cares and woes,
And sank in undisturbed repose;
Until the heath-cock shrilly crew,
And morning dawned on Ben-venue.

CANTO SECOND.

THE ISLAND.

I.

Ar morn the black-cock trims his jetty wing,
"Tis morning prompts the linnet's blithest lay,
All Nature's children feel the matin spring

Of life reviving, with reviving day;

And while yon little bark glides down the bay, Wafting the Stranger on his way again,

Morn's genial influence roused a Minstrel grey, And sweetly o'er the lake was heard thy strain, Mix'd with the sounding harp, O white-haired Allan

bane!

ᄑ

SONG.

"Not faster yonder rowers' might

Flings from their oars the spray,

Not faster yonder rippling bright,

That tracks the shallop's course in light,
Melts in the lake away,

Than men from memory erase

The benefits of former days;

Then, Stranger, gol good speed the while,

Nor think again of the lonely isle.

"High place to thee in royal court,
High place in battled line,

Good hawk and hound for sylvan sport,.
Where beauty sees the brave resort,
The honoured meed be thine!
True be thy sword, thy friend sincere,
Thy lady constant, kind, and dear,
And lost in love's and friendship's smile,
Be memory of the lonely isle.

III.

SONG continued.

"But if beneath yon southern sky
A plaided stranger roam,
Whose drooping crest and stifled sigh,
And sunken cheek and heavy eye, *
Pine for his highland home;

Then, warrior, then be thine to show.
The care that soothes a wanderer's woes
Remember then thy hap ere while

A stranger in the lonely isle.

Or if on life's uncertain main,"
Mishap shall mar thy sail;

If faithful, wise, and brave in vain,
Woe, want, and exile thou sustain
Beneath the fickle gale;

Waste not a sigh on fortune changed,

On thankless courts, or friends estranged,

But come where kindred worth shall smile,

To greet thee in the lonely isle.”

IV.

As died the sounds upon the tide,

The shallop reached the main-land side,

And ere his onward way he took,

The Stranger cast a lingering look,