CHARACTERS OF THE POEM

JAMES FITZ-JAMES, the Knight | MALISE, Roderick's henchman.

ALLAN-BANE, a minstrel at- JOHN of Brent.

SCENE: Perthshire, chiefly Loch Katrine and its neighbor

hood; afterwards Stirling Castle.

TIME: About 1530.

44

THE LADY OF THE LAKE

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?

1. Each canto is introduced by one or more Spenserian stanzas. Those which precede the first canto may be considered as introductory to the whole poem. They consist in an invocation of the Scottish Harp, symbolizing the old minstrelsy, in the manner of the Greek and Latin poets, whose poems began with invocations of the Muses.

2. witch-elm, or wych-elm, distinguished by its long leaves. St. Fillan's spring. St. Fillan was a Scotch abbot of the seventh century.

3. numbers, verses. Cf. Longfellow's Psalm of Life:

"Tell me not in mournful numbers," etc.

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 bowed; For still the burden of thy minstrelsy

10

15

Was Knighthood's dauntless deed, and Beauty's matchless eye.

20

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,

25

The wizard note has not been touched 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,

10. Caledon, or Caledonia. The Roman name for Scotland. 14. according pause, interlude.

28. fill. This word expresses, not what the stag drank, but how much he drank. It is therefore objective of measure, and should be construed as an adverb.

29. Monan's rill. This stream is not entered in any map or gazetteer that we have seen. Monan was a Scotch martyr of

the fourth century.