An evil principle innate, Contending with our better fate, And oh! victorious still? Howe'er it be, dispute is vain. On all without thou hold'st thy reign, Each mortal passion's fierce career, Whene'er a sunny gleam appears, Thou art not distant far; "Mid such brief solace of our lives, Thou whett'st our very banquet-knives To tools of death and war. Thus, from the moment of our birth, Thou rul'st the fate of men; "Therefore thus speaks my lady," the fair page he said, Untroubled in his look, and untroubled in his breast, The knight the weed hath taken, and reverently hath kiss'd: "Now bless'd be the moment, the messenger be blest! Much honour'd do I hold me in my lady's high behest; And say unto my lady, in this dear night-weed dress'd, To the best arm'd champion I will not veil my crest; But if I live and bear me well 'tis her turn to take the test." Here, gentles, ends the foremost fytte of the Lay of the Bloody Vest. THE BLOODY VEST. Chap. iii. FYTTE SECOND. He that climbs the tall tree has won right to the fruit, He that leaps the wide gulf should prevail in his suit; Through life's utmost peril the prize I have won, "I restore,' says my master, the garment I've worn, And I claim of the Princess to don it in turn; For its stains and its rents she should prize it the more, Since by shame 'tis unsullied, though crimson'd with gore." Then deep blush'd the Princess-yet kiss'd she and press'd The blood-spotted robes to her lips and her breast. "Go tell my true knight, church and chamber shall show, If I value the blood on this garment or no." (2.)-CHAP. XI. One thing is certain in our Northern land, (3.)-CHAP. XIII. You talk of Gaiety and Innocence! The moment when the fatal fruit was eaten, They parted ne'er to meet again; and Malice Has ever since been playmate to light Gaiety, From the first moment when the smiling infant Destroys the flower or butterfly he toys with, To the last chuckle of the dying miser, Who on his deathbed laughs his last to hear His wealthy neighbour has become a bankrupt. COME forth, old man-Thy daughter's side Is now the fitting place for thee: When Time hath quell'd the oak's bold pride, WHILE Scott was engaged in writing the Life of Napoleon, Mr. Lockhart says, "The rapid accumulation of books and MSS. was at once flattering and alarming; and one of his notes to me, about the mid-Now, ye wild blades, that make loose inns your stage, dle of June, had these rhymes by way of postscript : When with Poetry dealing Room enough in a shieling: Though my back I should rub On Diogenes' tub, How my fancy could prance In a dance of romance! But my house I must swap With some Brobdignag chap, : (2.)-CHAP. III. To vapour forth the acts of this sad age, Stout Edgehill fight, the Newberries and the West, Legend of Captain Jones. (3.)-CHAP. IV. Yon path of greensward Winds round by sparry grot and gay pavilion; Ere I grapple, God bless me! with Emperor There is no flint to gall thy tender foot, Nap." Life, vol. vii. p. 391. There's ready shelter from each breeze, or shower.- Lines to Sir Cuthbert Sharp. 1827. "SIR CUTHBERT SHARP, who had been particularly kind and attentive to Scott when at Sunderland, happened, in writing to him on some matter of business, to say he hoped he had not forgotten his friends in that quarter. Sir Walter's answer to Sir Cuthbert (who had been introduced to him by his old and dear friend Mr. Surtees of Mainsforth) begins thus: FORGET thee? No! my worthy fere! Forget the universal shout1 Forget you? No-though now-a-day Forget your kindness found for all room, Forget you? No. Forget your sprightly dumpty-diddles, And beauty tripping to the fiddles, Forget my lovely friends the Liddells— Forget you? No. "So much for oblivion, my dear Sir C.; and now, having dismounted from my Pegasus, who is rather spavined, charge a-foot, like an old dragoon as 1 am," &c. &c.—Life of Scott, vol. ix., p. 165. From Chronicles of the Canongate. 1827. MOTTOES. (1.) THE TWO DROVERS. CHAP. II. WERE ever such two loving friends!-How could they disagree? 1 An allusion to the enthusiastic reception of the Duke of Wellington at Sunderland.-ED. |