XXIV. To stout Saint George of Norwich merry, Saint Thomas, too, of Canterbury, XXV. "Gramercy!" quoth Lord Marmion, "Full loth were I, that Friar John, That venerable man, for me, Were placed in fear or jeopardy. If this same Palmer will me lead From hence to Holy-Rood, Like his good saint, I'll pay his meed, Instead of cockle-shell, or bead, With angels fair and good. I love such holy ramblers; still They know to charm a weary hill, With song, romance, or lay: Some jovial tale, or glee, or jest, Some lying legend, at the least, They bring to cheer the way."— XXVI. "Ah! noble sir," young Selby said, And finger on his lip he laid, "This man knows much, perchance e'en more Than he could learn by holy lore. Still to himself he's muttering, And shrinks as at some unseen thing. Strange sounds we heard, and, sooth to tell, I cannot tell-I like it not- No conscience clear, and void of wrong, 1 MS.-" And with metheglin warm'd his nose, As little as," &c. ?" This poem has faults of too great magnitude to be passed without notice. There is a debasing lowness and vulgarity in some passages, which we think must be offensive to every reader of delicacy, and which are not, for the most part, redeemed by any vigour or picturesque effect. The venison pasties, we think, are of this description; and this commemoration of Sir Hugh Heron's troopers, who Have drunk the monks of St. Bothan's ale,' &c. The long account of Friar John, though not without merit, This man shall guide me on my way, On his broad shoulders wrought; Was from Loretto brought; His sandals were with travel tore, Staff, budget, bottle, scrip, he wore; The faded palm-branch in his hand Show'd pilgrim from the Holy Land. As he his peer had been. But his gaunt frame was worn with toil; His eye look'd haggard wild: Soon change the form that best we know- And blanch at once the hair; Hard toil can roughen form and face,7 And want can quench the eye's bright grace, Nor does old age a wrinkle trace More deeply than despair. offends in the same sort, nor can we easily conceive, how any one could venture, in a serious poem, to speak of the wind that blows, And warms itself against his nose.""-JEFFREY.] 4 Ibid. Note S. 3 See Appendix, Note R. 5 "The first presentment of the mysterious Palmer is laud able."-JEFFREY. 6 MS.-"And near Lord Marmion took his seat." 7 MS.-"Hard toil can alter form and face, Happy whom none of these befall,' But this poor Palmer knew them all. XXIX. Lord Marmion then his boon did ask; To fair St. Andrews bound, XXX. And now the midnight draught of sleep, The page presents on knee. The minstrels ceased to sound. Soon in the castle nought was heard, But the slow footstep of the guard, Pacing his sober round. XXXI. With early dawn Lord Marmion rose: And knight and squire had broke their fast, 1 MS.-"Happy whom none such woes befall." MS." So he would ride with morning tide." 3 See Appendix, Note T. 4 Ibid. Note U. 5 MS.-"The cup pass'd round among the rest." 6 MS." Soon died the merry wassel roar." 7 "In Catholic countries, in order to reconcile the pleasures of the great with the observances of religion, it was common, when a party was bent for the chase, to celebrate mass, abridged and maimed of its rites, called a hunting-mass, the brevity of which was designed to correspond with the impatience of the audience."-Note to "The Abbot." New Edit. 8 MS.-"Slow they roll'd forth upon the air." See Appendix, Note V. Lord Marmion's bugles blew to horse: High thanks were by Lord Marmion paid, Marmion. INTRODUCTION TO CANTO SECOND. TO THE REV. JOHN MARRIOTT, A. M. Ashestiel, Ettrick Forest. THE scenes are desert now, and bare, Where flourish'd once a forest fair,9 When these waste glens with copse were lined, And peopled with the hart and hind. Yon Thorn-perchance whose prickly spears Have fenced him for three hundred years, While fell around his green compeersYon lonely Thorn, would he could tell The changes of his parent dell,10 Since he, so grey and stubborn now, Waved in each breeze a sapling bough; Would he could tell how deep the shade A thousand mingled branches made; How broad the shadows of the oak, How clung the rowan" to the rock, And through the foliage show'd his head, With narrow leaves and berries red; 10"The second epistle opens again with 'chance and change;' but it cannot be denied that the mode in which it is introduced is new and poetical. The comparison of Ettrick Forest, now open and naked, with the state in which it once was -covered with wood, the favourite resort of the royal hunt, and the refuge of daring outlaws-leads the poet to imagine an ancient thorn gifted with the powers of reason, and relating the various scenes which it has witnessed during a period of three hundred years. A melancholy train of fancy is naturally encouraged by the idea."-Monthly Review. 11 Mountain-ash. MS.-"How broad the ash his shadows flung, What pines on every mountain sprung, "Here, in my shade," methinks he'd say, "The mighty stag at noon-tide lay: The wolf I've seen, a fiercer game, (The neighbouring dingle bears his name,) With lurching step around me prowl, And stop, against the moon to howl; The mountain-boar, on battle set, His tusks upon my stem would whet; While doe, and roe, and red-deer good, Have bounded by, through gay green-wood. Then oft, from Newark's' riven tower, Sallied a Scottish monarch's power: A thousand vassals muster'd round, With horse, and hawk, and horn, and hound; Of such proud huntings, many tales Our mirth, dear Marriott, was the same. Nor dull, between each merry chase, Pass'd by the intermitted space; For we had fair resource in store, In Classic and in Gothic lore: We mark'd each memorable scene, And held poetic talk between; Nor hill, nor brook, we paced along, But had its legend or its song. All silent now-for now are still Thy bowers, untenanted Bowhill!4 No longer, from thy mountains dun, The yeoman hears the well-known gun, And while his honest heart glows warm, At thought of his paternal farm, Round to his mates a brimmer fills, And drinks, "The Chieftain of the Hills!" No fairy forms, in Yarrow's bowers, Trip o'er the walks, or tend the flowers, Fair as the eives whom Janet saw By moonlight dance on Carterhaugh; No youthful Baron 's left to grace The Forest-Sheriff's lonely chase, And ape, in manly step and tone, The majesty of Oberon: 5 And she is gone, whose lovely face Is but her least and lowest grace;" Though if to Sylphid Queen 'twere given, To show our earth the charms of Heaven, She could not glide along the air, With form more light, or face more fair. No more the widow's deafen'd ear Grows quick that lady's step to hear: At noontide she expects her not, Nor busies her to trim the cot; Pensive she turns her humming wheel, Or pensive cooks her orphans' meal; Yet blesses, ere she deals their bread, The gentle hand by which they're fed. From Yair, which hills so closely bind, Scarce can the Tweed his passage find, Though much he fret, and chafe, and toil, Till all his eddying currents boil,— Her long-descended lord? is gone, And left us by the stream alone. And much I miss those sportive boys, Companions of my mountain joys, Just at the age 'twixt boy and youth, When thought is speech, and speech is truth. See Notes to the Lay of the Last Minstrel. 2 Slowhound. The Tale of the Outlaw Murray, who held out Newark Castle and Ettrick Forest against the King, may be found in the Border Minstrelsy, vol. i. In the Macfarlane MS., among other causes of James the Fifth's charter to the burgh of Selkirk, is mentioned, that the citizens assisted him to suppress this dangerous outlaw. A seat of the Duke of Buccleuch on the Yarrow, in Ettrick Forest. See Notes to the Lay of the Last Minstrel. 5 Mr. Marriott was governor to the young nobleman here alluded to, George Henry, Lord Scott, son to Charles, Earl of Dalkeith, (afterwards Duke of Buccleuch and Queensberry,) and who died early in 1808.-See Life of Scott, vol. iii. pp. 59-61. 6 The four next lines on Harriet, Countess of Dalkeith, af terwards Duchess of Buccleuch, were not in the original MS. 7 The late Alexander Pringle, Esq., of Whytbank-whose beautiful seat of the Yair stands on the Tweed, about two miles below Ash stiel, the then residence of the poet 8 The sons of dr. Pringle of Whytbank. Close to my side, with what delight For Fate shall thrust you from the shore, On the free hours that we have spent When, musing on companions gone, We doubly feel ourselves alone, Something, my friend, we yet may gain; There is a pleasure in this pain: It soothes the love of lonely rest, Deep in each gentler heart impress'd. 'Tis silent amid worldly toils, And stifled soon by mental broils; But, in a bosom thus prepared, Its still small voice is often heard, Whispering a mingled sentiment, "Twixt resignation and content. Oft in my mind such thoughts awake, By lone Saint Mary's silent lake;3 Thou know'st it well,-nor fen, nor sedge, Pollute the pure lake's crystal edge; Abrupt and sheer, the mountains sink At once upon the level brink; And just a trace of silver sand Marks where the water meets the land. Far in the mirror, bright and blue, Fach hill's huge outline you may view ;5 Shaggy with heath, but lonely bare, Nor tree, nor bush, nor brake, is there, Save where, of land, yon slender line Bears thwart the lake the scatter'd pine. Yet even this nakedness has power, Nor point, retiring, hides a dell, Where swain, or woodman lone, might dwell; There's nothing left to fancy's guess, You see that all is loneliness: And silence aids though the steep hills In summer tide, so soft they weep, Nought living meets the eye or ear, But well I ween the dead are near; For though, in feudal strife, a foe Hath laid Our Lady's chapel low, Yet still, beneath the hallow'd soil, The peasant rests him from his toil, And, dying, bids his bones be laid, Where erst his simple fathers pray'd. If age had tamed the passions' strife,7 On the broad lake, and mountain's side, To sit upon the Wizard's grave; That Wizard Priest's, whose bones are thrust From company of holy dust;9 Cn which no sunbeam ever shines (So superstition's creed divines)—— 1 There is, on a high mountainous ridge above the farm of of peace and repose, as even the simple strains of our vener Ashestiel, a fosse called Wallace's Trench. able Walton."-Monthly Review. 8" And may at last my weary age To something like prophetic strain.” 7" A few of the lines which follow breathe as true a spirit 9 See Appendix, Note Y. Thence view the lake, with sullen roar, And thought the Wizard Priest was come, To frame him fitting shape and strange, But chief, 'twere sweet to think such life, (Though but escape from fortune's strife,) Something most matchless good and wise, A great and grateful sacrifice; And deem each hour to musing given, Yet him, whose heart is ill at case, Amid the elemental war: And my black Palmer's choice had been Some ruder and more savage scene, Like that which frowns round dark Loch-skene.1 There eagles scream from isle to shore; 1 MS.-"Spread through broad mist their snowy sail." MS.-"Till fancy wild had all her sway." 3 MS.-"Till from the task my brain I clear'd." See Appendix, Note Z. |