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More would he of Clan-Alpine know,
Thou canst our strength and passes show.-
Malise, what ho!"-his henchman came;1
"Give our safe-conduct to the Græme.”
Young Malcolm answer'd, calm and bold,
"Fear nothing for thy favourite hold;
The spot, an angel deigned to grace,
Is bless'd, though robbers haunt the place.
Thy churlish courtesy for those
Reserve, who fear to be thy foes.
As safe to me the mountain way
At midnight as in blaze of day,
Though with his boldest at his back
Even Roderick Dhu beset the track.-
Brave Douglas,-lovely Ellen,-nay,
Nought here of parting will I say.
Earth does not hold a lonesome glen,
So secret, but we meet agen.-
Chieftain! we too shall find an hour."-
He said, and left the silvan bower.

XXXVI.

Old Allan follow'd to the strand,
(Such was the Douglas's command,)
And anxious told, how, on the morn,
The stern Sir Roderick deep had sworn,
The Fiery Cross should circle o'er
Dale, glen, and valley, down, and moor.
Much were the peril to the Græme,
From those who to the signal came;
Far up the lake 'twere safest land,
Himself would row him to the strand.
He gave his counsel to the wind,
While Malcolm did, unheeding, bind,

Round dirk and pouch and broadsword roll'd,

His ample plaid in tighten'd fold,

And stripp'd his limbs to such array,
As best might suit the watery way,-

XXXVII.

Then spoke abrupt: "Farewell to thee,
Pattern of old fidelity!"

The Minstrel's hand he kindly press'd,-
"O! could I point a place of rest!
My sovereign holds in ward my land,
My uncle leads my vassal band;
To tame his foes, his friends to aid,
Poor Malcolm has but heart and blade.
Yet, if there be one faithful Græme,
Who loves the Chieftain of his name,
Not long shall honour'd Douglas dwell,
Like hunted stag in mountain cell;
Nor, ere yon pride-swoll'n robber dare,--
I may not give the rest to air!

Tell Roderick Dhu, I owed him nought,
Not the poor service of a boat,

1 See Appendix, Note 2 B.

2 MS." He spoke, and plunged into the tide."

3 "There are no separate introductions to the cantos of this poem; but each of them begins with one or two stanzas in the measure of Spenser, usually containing some reflections

To waft me to yon mountain-side."
Then plunged he in the flashing tide.2
Bold o'er the flood his head he bore,
And stoutly steer'd him from the shore:
And Allan strain'd his anxious eye,
Far 'mid the lake his form to spy.
Darkening across each puny wave,
To which the moon her silver gave,
Fast as the cormorant could skim,
The swimmer plied each active limb;
Then landing in the moonlight dell,
Loud shouted of his weal to tell.
The Minstrel heard the far halloo,
And joyful from the shore withdrew.

The Lady of the Lake.

CANTO THIRD.

The Gathering.

I.

TIME rolls his ceaseless course. The race of yore,3
Who danced our infancy upon their knee,
And told our marvelling boyhood legends store,

Of their strange ventures happ'd by land or sea, How are they blotted from the things that be!

How few, all weak and wither'd of their force, Wait on the verge of dark eternity,

Like stranded wrecks, the tide returning hoarse, To sweep them from our sight! Time rolls his ceaseless course.

Yet live there still who can remember well,
How, when a mountain chief his bugle blew,
Both field and forest, dingle, cliff, and dell,
And solitary heath, the signal knew;
And fast the faithful clan around him drew,
What time the warning note was keenly wound,
What time aloft their kindred banner flew,
While clamorous war-pipes yell'd the gathering

sound,

And while the Fiery Cross glanced, like a meteor, round.1

II.

The summer dawn's reflected hue
To purple changed Loch Katrine blue;
Mildly and soft the western breeze
Just kiss'd the Lake, just stirr'd the trees,
And the pleased lake, like maiden coy,
Trembled but dimpled not for joy;
The mountain-shadows on her breast
Were neither broken nor at rest;

connected with the subject about to be entered on; and written, for the most part, with great tenderness and beauty. The following, we think, is among the most striking."— J sz

FREY.

4 See Appendix, Note 2 C.

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2

In bright uncertainty they lie,
Like future joys to Fancy's eye.
The water-lily to the light
Her chalice rear'd of silver bright;
The doe awoke, and to the lawn,
Begemm'd with dew-drops, led her fawn;
The grey mist left the mountain side,
The torrent show'd its glistening pride;
Invisible in flecked sky,

The lark sent down her revelry;

The blackbird and the speckled thrush Good-morrow gave from brake and bush ;s In answer coo'd the cushat dove

Her notes of peace, and rest, and love.

III.

No thought of peace, no thought of rest,
Assuaged the storm in Roderick's breast.
With sheathed broadsword in his hand,
Abrupt he paced the islet strand,
and laid

And eyed the rising sun,
His hand on his impatient blade.
Beneath a rock, his vassals' care3
Was prompt the ritual to prepare,
With deep and deathful meaning fraught;
For such Antiquity had taught
Was preface meet, ere yet abroad
The Cross of Fire should take its road.
The shrinking band stood oft aghast
At the impatient glance he cast;-
Such glance the mountain eagle threw,
As, from the cliffs of Benvenue,
She spread her dark sails on the wind,
And, high in middle heaven, reclined,
With her broad shadow on the lake,
Silenced the warblers of the brake.

IV.

A heap of wither'd boughs was piled,
Of juniper and rowan wild,
Mingled with shivers from the oak,
Rent by the lightning's recent stroke.
Brian, the Hermit, by it stood,
Barefooted, in his frock and hood.

MS.-"The doe awoke, and to the lawn,
Begemm'd with dewdrops, led her fawn,
Invisible in fleecy cloud,

The lark sent down her matins loud;
The light mist left," &c.

"The Green hills

Are clothed with early blossoms; through the grass
The quick-eyed lizard rustles, and the bills

Of summer birds sing welcome as ye pass."--Childe Harold.

3 MS.-"Hard by, his vassals' early care

The mystic ritual prepare."

4 See Appendix, Note 2 D.

MS." While the bless'd creed gave only worse." 6 MS." He pray'd with many a cross between, And terror took devotion's mien."

7 See Appendix, Note 2 E.

8" There is something of pride in the perilous hour, Whate'er be the shape in which death may lower;

His grisled beard and matted hair
Obscured a visage of despair;
His naked arms and legs, seam'd o'er,
The scars of frantic penance bore.
That monk, of savage form and face,*
The impending danger of his race
Had drawn from deepest solitude,
Far in Benharrow's bosom rude.
Not his the mien of Christian priest,
But Druid's, from the grave released,
Whose harden'd heart and eye might brook
On human sacrifice to look;

And much, 'twas said, of heathen lore

Mix'd in the charms he mutter'd o'er.
The hallow'd creed gave only worse
And deadlier emphasis of curse;
No peasant sought that Hermit's prayer,
His cave the pilgrim shunn'd with care,
The eager huntsman knew his bound,
And in mid chase call'd off his hound;
Or if, in lonely glen or strath,
The desert-dweller met his path,
He pray'd, and sign'd the cross between,
While terror took devotion's mien."

V.

Of Brian's birth strange tales were told.?
His mother watch'd a midnight fold,
Built deep within a dreary glen,
Where scatter'd lay the bones of men,
In some forgotten battle slain,
And bleach'd by drifting wind and rain.
It might have tamed a warrior's heart,8
To view such mockery of his art!
The knot-grass fetter'd there the hand,
Which once could burst an iron band;
Beneath the broad and ample bone,
That buckler'd heart to fear unknown,
A feeble and a timorous guest,
The field-fare framed her lowly nest;
There the slow blind-worm left his slime
On the fleet limbs that mock'd at time;
And there, too, lay the leader's skull,"
Still wreathed with chaplet, flush'd and full,

For Fame is there to say who bleeds,
And Honour's eye on daring deeds!

But when all is past, it is humbling to tread
O'er the weltering field of the tombless dead,
And see worms of the earth, and fowls of the air,
Beasts of the forest, all gathering there;
All regarding man as their prey,

All rejoicing in his decay."-BYRON-Siege of Corinth.

9 "Remove yon skull from out the scattered heaps.
Is that a temple where a god may dwell?
Why, even the worm at last disdains her shattered cell
Look on its broken arch, its ruin'd wall,
Its chambers desolate, and portais foul;
Yet this was once Ambition's airy hall,
The dome of thought, the palace of the soul;
Behold through each lack-lustre, eyeless hole.
The gay recess of wisdom, and of wit,

For heath-bell with her purple bloom,
Supplied the bonnet and the plume.1
All night, in this sad glen, the maid
Sate, shrouded in her mantle's shade:
-She said, no shepherd sought her
side,

No hunter's hand her snood untied,
Yet ne'er again to braid her hair
The virgin snood did Alice wear;2
Gone was her maiden glee and sport,
Her maiden girdle all too short,
Nor sought she, from that fatal night,
Or holy church or blessed rite,
But lock'd her secret in her breast,
And died in travail, unconfess d.

VI.

Alone, among his young compeers,
Was Brian from his infant years;
A moody and heart-broken boy,
Estranged from sympathy and joy,
Bearing each taunt which careless tongue
On his mysterious lineage flung.
Whole nights he spent by moonlight pale,
To wood and stream his hap to wail,
Till, frantic, he as truth received3
What of his birth the crowd believed,
And sought, in mist and meteor fire,
To meet and know his Phantom Sire!
In vain, to soothe his wayward fate,
The cloister oped her pitying gate;
In vain, the learning of the age
Unclasp'd the sable-letter'd page;
Even in its treasures he could find
Food for the fever of his mind.
Eager he read whatever tells
Of magic, cabala, and spells,

And every dark pursuit allied

To curious and presumptuous pride;
Till with fired brain and nerves o'er-
strung,

And heart with mystic horrors wrung,
Desperate he sought Benharrow's den,
And hid him from the haunts of men.

VII.

The desert gave him visions wild,
Such as might suit the spectre's child.
Where with black cliffs the torrents toil,
He watch'd the wheeling eddies boil,
Till, from their foam, his dazzled eyes
Beheld the River Demon rise;

And passion's host, that never brook'd control:
Can all saint, sage, or sophist ever writ,
People this lonely tower, this tenement refit?"
Childe Harou!.

1 "These reflections on an ancient field of battle afford the most remarkable instance of false taste in all Mr. Scott's writings. Yet the brevity and variety of the images serve well to show, that even in his errors there are traces of a powerful genius."-JEFFREY.

The mountain mist took form and limb,
Of noontide hag, or goblin grim;
The midnight wind came wild and dread,
Swell'd with the voices of the dead;

Far on the future battle-heath
His eye beheld the ranks of death:
Thus the lone Seer, from mankind hurl'd,
Shaped forth a disembodied world.
One lingering sympathy of mind
Still bound him to the mortal kind;
The only parent he could claim
Of ancient Alpine's lineage came.
Late had he heard, in prophet's dream,
The fatal Ben-Shie's boding scream ;3
Sounds, too, had come in midnight blast,
Of charging steeds, careering fast
Along Benharrow's shingly side,

Where mortal horseman ne'er might ride;"
The thunderbolt had split the pine,--

All augur'd ill to Alpine's line.

He girt his loins, and came to show
The signals of impending woe,
And now stood prompt to bless or ban,
As bade the Chieftain of his clan.

VIII.

"Twas all prepared ;—and from the rock,
A goat, the patriarch of the flock,
Before the kindling pile was laid,
And pierced by Roderick's ready blade.
Patient the sickening victim eyed
The life-blood ebb in crimson tide,
Down his clogg'd beard and shaggy limb,
Till darkness glazed his eyeballs dim.
The grisly priest, with murmuring prayer,
A slender crosslet form'd with care,
A cubit's length in measure due;
The shaft and limbs were rods of yew,
Whose parents in Inch-Cailliach wave?
Their shadows o'er Clan-Alpine's grave,
And, answering Lomond's breezes deep,
Soothe many a chieftain's endless sleep.
The Cross, thus form'd, he held on high,
With wasted hand, and haggard eye,
And strange and mingled feelings woke,
While his anathema he spoke.

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