Scarce from her lip the word had rushed,
When deep the conscious maiden blushed;
For of his clan, in hall and bower,

Young Malcolm Græme was held the flower.

VII.

The minstrel waked his harp,- three times
Arose the well-known martial chimes,

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115

And thrice their high heroic pride

In melancholy murmurs died.

'Vainly thou bidst, O noble maid,'

Clasping his withered hands, he said,

'Vainly thou bidst me wake the strain,

120

Though all unwont to bid in vain.

Alas! than mine a mightier hand

Has tuned my harp, my strings has spanned!
I touch the chords of joy, but low
And mournful answer notes of woe;

And the proud march which victors tread

125

characters in the Scottish annals. Sir John the Græme, the faithful and undaunted partaker of the labors and patriotic warfare of Wallace, fell in the unfortunate field of Falkirk, in 1298. The celebrated Marquis of Montrose, in whom De Retz saw realized his abstract idea of the heroes of antiquity, was the second of these worthies. And notwithstanding the severity of his temper, and the rigor with which he executed the oppressive mandates of the princes whom he served, I do not hesitate to name as a third, John Græme of Claverhouse, Viscount of Dundee, whose heroic death in the arms of victory may be allowed to cancel the memory of his cruelty to the Nonconformists, during the reigns of Charles II. and James II.". Scott.

121. unwont, unaccustomed.

Sinks in the wailing for the dead.

O, well for me, if mine alone
That dirge's deep prophetic tone!

If, as my tuneful fathers said,

This harp, which erst Saint Modan swayed,
Can thus its master's fate foretell,

Then welcome be the minstrel's knell!

VIII.

'But ah! dear lady, thus it sighed,

The eve thy sainted mother died;

And such the sounds which, while I strove

To wake a lay of war or love,

Came marring all the festal mirth,

Appalling me who gave them birth,

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135

And, disobedient to my call,

Wailed loud through Bothwell's bannered hall,

Ere Douglases, to ruin driven,

Were exiled from their native heaven.

O! if yet worse mishap and woe
My master's house must undergo,
Or aught but weal to Ellen fair
Brood in these accents of despair,
No future bard, sad Harp! shall fling

130. tuneful fathers, earlier minstrels.

140

145

131. erst, formerly. Saint Modan, a Scotch abbot of the seventh century.

141. Bothwell's bannered hall, Bothwell Castle on the Clyde, near Glasgow.

142. Douglases, see note on Canto I. 1. 729.

146. weal, good fortune.

Triumph or rapture from thy string;
One short, one final strain shall flow,
Fraught with unutterable woe,
Then shivered shall thy fragments lie,
Thy master cast him down and die!'

IX.

Soothing she answered him: 'Assuage,
Mine honored friend, the fears of age;
All melodies to thee are known

That harp has rung or pipe has blown,
In Lowland vale or Highland glen,

From Tweed to Spey - what marvel, then,
At times unbidden notes should rise,
Confusedly bound in memory's ties,
Entangling, as they rush along,

The war-march with the funeral song?
Small ground is now for boding fear;
Obscure, but safe, we rest us here.
My sire, in native virtue great,
Resigning lordship, lands, and state,
Not then to fortune more resigned
Than yonder oak might give the wind;
The graceful foliage storms may reave,
The noble stem they cannot grieve.

For me' she stooped, and, looking round,

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155

160

165

170

159. Tweed . . . Spey, the former the southern boundary of Scotland, the latter a river in the extreme north.

164. boding, foreboding.

170. reave, tear away.

Plucked a blue harebell from the ground,
'For me, whose memory scarce conveys
An image of more splendid days,
This little flower that loves the lea

May well my simple emblem be;

It drinks heaven's dew as blithe as rose

That in the King's own garden grows;
And when I place it in my hair,
Allan, a bard is bound to swear
He ne'er saw coronet so fair.'
Then playfully the chaplet wild

She wreathed in her dark locks, and smiled.

X.

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180

Her smile, her speech, with winning sway,
Wiled the old Harper's mood away.

185

With such a look as hermits throw,

When angels stoop to soothe their woe,
He gazed, till fond regret and pride
Thrilled to a tear, then thus replied:
'Loveliest and best! thou little know'st
The rank, the honors, thou hast lost!
O, might I live to see thee grace,
In Scotland's court, thy birthright place.
To see my favorite's step advance
The lightest in the courtly dance.
The cause of every gallant's sigh,
And leading star of every eye,

176. lea, meadow.

190

195

And theme of every minstrel's art,
The Lady of the Bleeding Heart!'

XI.

'Fair dreams are these,' the maiden cried, –
Light was her accent, yet she sighed,-
'Yet is this mossy rock to me
Worth splendid chair and canopy;
Nor would my footstep spring more gay
In courtly dance than blithe strathspey,
Nor half so pleased mine ear incline
To royal minstrel's lay as thine.
And then for suitors proud and high,
To bend before my conquering eye,-
Thou, flattering bard! thyself wilt say,
That grim Sir Roderick owns its sway.
The Saxon scourge, Clan-Alpine's pride,
The terror of Loch Lomond's side,
Would, at my suit, thou know'st, delay
A Lennox foray - for a day.'-

XII.

The ancient bard her glee repressed: 'Ill hast thou chosen theme for jest!

200

205

210

215

200. Bleeding Heart, the cognizance of the Douglas family, chosen to commemorate Robert Bruce's dying bequest of his heart to James Douglas, whom he charged with the duty of carrying it to Jerusalem. Bruce's heart is now in Melrose Abbey. 206. strathspey, a Highland dance.

214. Loch Lomond. See map.

216. Lennox foray, a raid into the territory of the Lennox family, south of Loch Lomond.