The Lady of the Lake | Page 5

from her
cairn on high,
Cast on the rout a wondering eye,
Till far beyond her
piercing ken
The hurricane had swept the glen.
Faint, and more
faint, its failing din
Returned from cavern, cliff, and linn,
And
silence settled, wide and still,
On the lone wood and mighty hill.
IV.
Less loud the sounds of sylvan war
Disturbed the heights of Uam-Var,

And roused the cavern where, 't is told,
A giant made his den of old;

For ere that steep ascent was won,
High in his pathway hung the
sun,
And many a gallant, stayed perforce,
Was fain to breathe his
faltering horse,
And of the trackers of the deer
Scarce half the
lessening pack was near;
So shrewdly on the mountain-side
Had the
bold burst their mettle tried.
V.
The noble stag was pausing now
Upon the mountain's southern brow,


Where broad extended, far beneath,
The varied realms of fair
Menteith.
With anxious eye he wandered o'er
Mountain and
meadow, moss and moor,
And pondered refuge from his toil,
By far
Lochard or Aberfoyle.
But nearer was the copsewood gray
That
waved and wept on Loch Achray,
And mingled with the pine-trees
blue
On the bold cliffs of Benvenue.
Fresh vigor with the hope
returned,
With flying foot the heath he spurned,
Held westward
with unwearied race,
And left behind the panting chase.
VI.
'T were long to tell what steeds gave o'er,
As swept the hunt through
Cambusmore;
What reins were tightened in despair,
When rose
Benledi's ridge in air;
Who flagged upon Bochastle's heath,
Who
shunned to stem the flooded Teith,--
For twice that day, from shore to
shore,
The gallant stag swam stoutly o'er.
Few were the stragglers,
following far,
That reached the lake of Vennachar;
And when the
Brigg of Turk was won,
The headmost horseman rode alone.
VII.
Alone, but with unbated zeal,
That horseman plied the scourge and
steel;
For jaded now, and spent with toil,
Embossed with foam, and
dark with soil,
While every gasp with sobs he drew,
The laboring
stag strained full in view.
Two dogs of black Saint Hubert's breed,

Unmatched for courage, breath, and speed,
Fast on his flying traces
came,
And all but won that desperate game;
For, scarce a spear's
length from his haunch,
Vindictive toiled the bloodhounds stanch;

Nor nearer might the dogs attain,
Nor farther might the quarry strain

Thus up the margin of the lake,

Between the precipice and brake,

O'er stock and rock their race they take.
VIII.

The Hunter marked that mountain high,
The lone lake's western
boundary,
And deemed the stag must turn to bay,
Where that huge
rampart barred the way;
Already glorying in the prize,
Measured his
antlers with his eyes;
For the death-wound and death-halloo

Mustered his breath, his whinyard drew:--
But thundering as he came
prepared,
With ready arm and weapon bared,
The wily quarry
shunned the shock,
And turned him from the opposing rock;
Then,
dashing down a darksome glen,
Soon lost to hound and Hunter's ken,

In the deep Trosachs' wildest nook
His solitary refuge took.

There, while close couched the thicket shed
Cold dews and wild
flowers on his head,
He heard the baffled dogs in vain
Rave through
the hollow pass amain,
Chiding the rocks that yelled again.
IX.
Close on the hounds the Hunter came,
To cheer them on the vanished
game;
But, stumbling in the rugged dell,
The gallant horse
exhausted fell.
The impatient rider strove in vain
To rouse him with
the spur and rein,
For the good steed, his labors o'er,
Stretched his
stiff limbs, to rise no more;
Then, touched with pity and remorse,

He sorrowed o'er the expiring horse.
'I little thought, when first thy
rein
I slacked upon the banks of Seine,
That Highland eagle e'er
should feed
On thy fleet limbs, my matchless steed!
Woe worth the
chase, woe worth the day,
That costs thy life, my gallant gray!'
X.
Then through the dell his horn resounds,
From vain pursuit to call the
hounds.
Back limped, with slow and crippled pace,
The sulky
leaders of the chase;
Close to their master's side they pressed,

With
drooping tail and humbled crest;
But still the dingle's hollow throat

Prolonged the swelling bugle-note.
The owlets started from their
dream,
The eagles answered with their scream,
Round and around
the sounds were cast,
Till echo seemed an answering blast;
And on

the Hunter tried his way,
To join some comrades of the day,
Yet
often paused, so strange the road,
So wondrous were the scenes it
showed.
XI.
The western waves of ebbing day
Rolled o'er the glen their level way;

Each purple peak, each flinty spire,
Was bathed in floods of living
fire.
But not a setting beam could glow
Within the dark ravines
below,
Where twined the path in shadow hid,
Round many a rocky
pyramid,
Shooting abruptly from the dell
Its thunder-splintered
pinnacle;
Round many an insulated mass,
The native bulwarks of
the pass,
Huge as the tower which builders vain
Presumptuous piled
on Shinar's plain.
The rocky summits, split and rent,
Formed turret,
dome, or battlement.
Or seemed fantastically set
With cupola or
minaret,
Wild crests as pagod ever decked,
Or mosque of Eastern
architect.
Nor were these earth-born castles bare,
Nor lacked they
many a banner fair;
For, from their shivered brows displayed,
Far
o'er the unfathomable glade,
All twinkling with the dewdrop sheen,

The briar-rose fell in streamers green,
kind creeping shrubs of
thousand dyes
Waved in the west-wind's summer sighs.
XII.
Boon nature scattered, free and wild,
Each plant or flower, the
mountain's child.
Here eglantine embalmed the air,
Hawthorn and