Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

'HARP of the North, farewell! The hills grow dark,
On purple peaks a deeper shade descending;
In twilight copse the glow-worm lights her spark,
The deer, half seen, are to the covert wending.
Resume thy wizard elm! the fountain lending,
And the wild breeze, thy wilder minstrelsy;
Thy numbers sweet with nature's vespers blending,
With distant echo from the fold and lea,
And herd-boy's evening pipe, and hum of housing bee.

Yet, once again, farewell, thou Minstrel Harp!
Yet, once again, forgive my feeble sway,
And little reck I of the censure sharp

May idly 'cavil at an idle lay.

Much have I owed thy strains on life's long way,
Through secret woes the world has never known,
When on the weary night dawned wearier day,

85*

And bitterer was the grief devoured alone. That I oo'erlive such woes, Enchantress is thine own.

'Hark! as my lingering footsteps slow retire,
Some Spirit of the Air has waked thy string!
"Tis now a seraph bold, with touch of fire,
'Tis now the brush of Fairy's frolic wing.
Receding now, the dying numbers ring

860

Fainter and fainter down the rugged dell; And now the mountain breezes scarcely bring A wandering witch-note of the distant spell And now, 'tis silent all!-Enchantress, fare thee well

NOTES

CANTO FIRST

LINE 2. Witch-elm. The drooping, broad-leaved elm of Scot Land, whose twigs were formerly used as divining-rods.

Saint Fillan. A Scotch abbot of the eighth century, He had several springs. This one was probably the Holy Pool west of Loch Earn, in which insane people used to be dipped.

"Thence to Saint Fillan's blessed well,

Whose springs can frenzied dreams dispel
And the crazed brain restore."

— Marmion, 1. 500.

3. Numbers. Eighteenth century for verses.

4. Envious ivy. Why envious?

10. Caledon. Caledonia, Roman name for Scotland.

14. According pause. Pause filled by the harp accompaniment. MS. reads:—

"At each according pause thou spokest aloud.

Thine ardent sympathy sublime and high

Which is better, and why?

How is this prelude a fitting introduction ?

29. Monan's rill. Saint Monan was a Scotch martyr of the fourth century.

31. Glenartney. See map. Do you know the hazel? Learn all the plants mentioned.

[graphic]

82. Beacon. Why beacon!

38. Benvoirlich. Ben is Gaelic for mountain.

84. Deep-mouthed. Cf. Shakespeare, 1 Henry VI., II. iv. 12. 36 Between two dogs, which hath the deeper morth."

88-41. As . . . haste. Notice simile. Have you seen Landseer e picture, "The Monarch of the Glen"?

15. Beamed frontlet. Antlered forehead.

46. Adown. A poetic word not permitted in prose. Make ist of all such words that you find.

47. Tainted gale. Meaning of "tainted" here?

53. Uam-Var. An ancient robber stronghold.

54. Yelled. pack.

Prose order? Notice force of inversion

and of opening trochee.

Opening. Barking when the view opened.

66. Cairn. Unusual use of the word.

What?

68. Ken. Find other words from the same root. Read the stanza aloud to get the effect of its crescendo and diminuendo. 71. Linn. Cascade ? Pool ?

81. Breathe. Transitive.

84. Shrewdly. Severely.

85. Burst. What part of speech?

89. Menteith. Borders of river Teith.

91. Moss. Boggy place. Have you read Crockett's The Mex of the Mosshags? It is the obverse of Scott's Old Mortality. 93. Lochard. Appears in Rob Roy and Waverley.

95. Loch Achray. The eastern outlet of the Trosachs Pass 102. 'Twere. What part of the verb ?

103-118. As swept . . . Follow the hunt upon the map.

112. Brigg of Turk. Brigg means bridge. Read Burns's “The Brigs of Ayr."

117. Embossed. Old hunting expression.

120. Saint Hubert's breed. Scott says, quoting from an old writer, "These are the hounds which the abbots of Saint Hubert have always kept some of their race or kind in honor or remem brance of the saint, which was a hunter with Saint Eustace, Whereupon we may conceive that (by the grace of God) all good buntsmen shall follow them into paradise."

127. Quarry. The animal hunted.

131. Mountain. Which?

138. Whinyard. Short thick knife.

142. Turned him. Reflexive use, found in older writers. A Latinism.

145. Trosachs. The wild country near Lochs Katrine and Vennachar, especially the pass between Lochs Katrine and Achray. 147. Couched. Syntax?

150. Amain. Cf. "with might and main." Derivation of word? Milton's Lycidas, l. 111, speaking of Saint Peter's keys ·

"The golden opes, the iron shuts amain."

151. Chiding. See 1. 287. Cf. 1 Henry IV., III. i. 46.

"The sea that chides the banks of England.”

Explain the faded metaphor.

163. Seine. Where is the Seine? At the end of the poem recall this allusion and find out when and why the hunter visited the Seine.

166-67. Woe worth. Woe be to

[ocr errors]

bare.

184-277. The western waves Try to learn this description "by heart," having first nunted out all the delicate

touches which make it exquisite. Scott was able to describe sa perfectly because he had learned to see so accurately and lovingly. 195. Native bulwarks. MS. reads, "The mimic castle of the pass."

196. Tower. See Gen. xi. 1-9.

208. Sheen. Adj., bright.

212. Boon. Adj. Derivation?

217. Bower. Dwelling, home, A.-S. búr. Cf. Shakespeare, Son nets, cxxvii. 7. In domestic use the word is applied to any private sitting-room. Cf. "in hall or bower." Neighbor (neah-búr) is

from same root.

218. Foxglove and nightshade. Mr. Ruskin, in his Modern Painters, III., refers to Scott's habit of drawing a slight moral from every scene-and that this slight moral is almost always melancholy. "He seems to have been constantly rebuking his own worldly pride and vanity, but purposefully." This is one of the illustrations given. But is the idea Scott's, or only Ruskin's? 228-229. Where sky. Notice this bit. 254-260. And now

made.

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

• • . won.

True until the present road was

256. Nice. Used correctly, not in schoolgirl fashion, “a nice gown," "nice chocolate creams."

258. Broom. What royal family used the broom as its emblem, and was named therefrom? Was any one in this poem descended from that family?

262. Living gold. Why living? Study a photograph of Loch Katrine.

269. Sentinel enchanted land. Did Scott suspect that he him. self was to be the Enchanter? Derivation and history of enchanted. 274. Wildering. Poetic contraction.

285. Cloister. Here a monastery, not the inner covered walk

« AnteriorContinuar »