Unless he climb, with footing nice,

A far projecting precipice.

The broom's tough roots his ladder made,

The hazel saplings lent their aid;

And thus an airy point he won,

Where, gleaming with the setting sun,
One burnish'd sheet of living gold,
Loch-Katrine lay beneath him roll'd;
In all her length far winding lay,
With promontory, creek, and bay,
And islands that, empurpled bright,
Floated amid the livelier light;

And mountains, that like giants stand,

To centinel enchanted land.

High on the south, huge Benvenue

Down on the lake in masses threw

Crags, knolls, and mounds, confusedly hurl'd,

The fragments of an earlier world;

A wildering forest feather'd o'er

His ruin'd sides and summit hoar,

While on the north, through middle air,

Ben-an heaved high his forehead bare.

XV.

From the steep promontory gazed

The Stranger, raptured and amazed.

And, "What a scene were here,” he cried,
"For princely pomp or churchman's pride!
On this bold brow, a lordly tower;
In that soft vale, a lady's bower;

On yonder meadow, far away,

The turrets of a cloister grey.

How blithely might the bugle-horn

Chide, on the lake, the lingering morn!

How sweet, at eve, the lover's lute

Chime, when the groves were still and mute!

And, when the midnight moon should lave

Her forehead in the silver wave,

How solemn on the ear would come

The holy matin's distant hum,

While the deep peal's commanding tone

Should wake, in yonder islet lone,

A sainted hermit from his cell,

To drop a bead with

every knell

And bugle, lute, and bell, and all,
Should each bewilder'd stranger call

To friendly feast, and lighted hall.

XVI.

66 Blythe were it then to wander here! But now,-beshrew yon nimble deer,— Like that same hermit's, thin and spare, The copse must give my evening fare ; Some mossy bank my couch must be, Some rustling oak my canopy.

Yet

pass we that ;—the war and chase

Give little choice of resting-place ;く

A summer night, in green-wood spent,

Were but to-morrow's merriment ;

But hosts may in these wilds abound,

Such as are better miss'd than found;

4

To meet with Highland plunderers here

Were worse than loss of steed or deer.-
I am alone ;-my bugle strain

May call some straggler of the train

Or, fall the worst that may betide,

;

Ere now this faulchion has been tried."

XVII.

But scarce again his horn he wound,
When lo! forth starting at the sound,

From underneath an aged oak,
That slanted from the islet rock,

A Damsel guider of its way,

A little skiff shot to the bay,
That round the promontory steep
Led its deep line in graceful sweep,
Eddying, in almost viewless wave,

The weeping willow twig to lave,

And kiss, with whispering sound and slow,

The beach of pebbles bright as snow.

The boat had touch'd this silver strand,

Just as the Hunter left his stand,

And stood conceal'd amid the brake,

To view this Lady of the Lake.
The maiden paused, as if again
She thought to catch the distant strain.

With head up-raised, and look intent,
And eye and ear attentive bent,

And locks flung back, and lips apart,
Like monument of Grecian art,

In listening mood, she seem'd to stand
The guardian Naiad of the strand.

XVIII.

And ne'er did Grecian chisel trace

A Nymph, a Naiad, or a Grace,

Of finer form, or lovelier face!

What though the sun, with ardent frown, Had slightly tinged her cheek with brown,The sportive toil, which, short and light,

Had dyed her glowing hue so bright,