The Lady of the Lake | Page 5

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 hazel mingled there;?The primrose pale and violet flower?Found in each cliff a narrow bower;?Foxglove and nightshade, side by side,?Emblems of punishment and pride,?Grouped their dark hues with every stain?The weather-beaten crags retain.?With boughs that quaked at every breath,?Gray birch and aspen wept beneath;?Aloft, the ash and warrior oak?Cast anchor in the rifted rock;?And, higher yet, the pine-tree hung?His shattered trunk, and frequent flung,?Where seemed the cliffs to meet on high,?His boughs athwart the narrowed sky.?Highest of all, where white peaks glanced,?Where glistening streamers waved and danced,?The wanderer's eye could barely view?The summer heaven's delicious blue;?So wondrous wild, the whole might seem?The scenery of a fairy dream.
XIII.
Onward, amid the copse 'gan peep?A narrow inlet, still and