The Lady of the Lake | Page 9

it all a vision now?
XXXIV.
At length, with Ellen in a grove?He seemed to walk and speak of love;?She listened with a blush and sigh,?His suit was warm, his hopes were high.?He sought her yielded hand to clasp,?And a cold gauntlet met his grasp:?The phantom's sex was changed and gone,?Upon its head a helmet shone;?Slowly enlarged to giant size,?With darkened cheek and threatening eyes,?The grisly visage, stern and hoar,?To Ellen still a likeness bore.--?He woke, and, panting with affright,?Recalled the vision of the night.?The hearth's decaying brands were red?And deep and dusky lustre shed,?Half showing, half concealing, all?The uncouth trophies of the hall.?Mid those the stranger fixed his eye?Where that huge falchion hung on high,?And thoughts on thoughts, a countless throng,?Rushed, chasing countless thoughts along,?Until, the giddy whirl to cure,?He rose and sought the moonshine pure.
XXXV.
The wild rose, eglantine, and broom?Wasted around their rich perfume;?The birch-trees wept in fragrant balm;?The aspens slept beneath the calm;?The silver light, with quivering glance,?Played on the water's still expanse,--?Wild were the heart whose passion's sway?Could rage beneath the sober ray!?He felt its calm, that warrior guest,?While thus he communed with his breast:--?'Why is it, at each turn I trace?Some memory of that exiled race??Can I not mountain maiden spy,?But she must bear the Douglas eye??Can I not view a Highland brand,?But it must match the Douglas hand??Can I not frame a fevered dream,?But still the Douglas is the theme??I'll dream no more,-- by manly mind?Not even in sleep is will resigned.?My midnight orisons said o'er,?I'll turn to rest, and dream no more.'?His midnight orisons he told,?A prayer with every bead of gold,?Consigned to heaven his cares and woes,?And sunk in undisturbed repose,?Until the heath-cock shrilly crew,?And morning dawned on Benvenue.
CANTO SECOND.
The Island.
I.
At morn the black-cock trims his jetty wing,
'T is morning prompts the linnet's blithest lay,?All Nature's children feel the matin spring
Of life reviving, with reviving day;?And while yon little bark glides down the bay,
Wafting the stranger on his way again,?Morn's genial influence roused a minstrel gray,
And sweetly o'er the lake was heard thy strain,?Mixed with the sounding harp, O white-haired Allan-bane!
II.
Song.
'Not faster yonder rowers' might
Flings from their oars the spray,?Not faster yonder rippling bright,?That tracks the shallop's course in light,
Melts in the lake away,?Than men from memory erase?The benefits of former days;?Then, stranger, go! good speed the while,?Nor think again of the lonely isle.
'High place to thee in royal court,
High place in battled line,?Good hawk and hound for sylvan sport!?Where beauty sees the brave resort,
The honored meed be shine!?True be thy sword, thy friend sincere,?Thy lady constant, kind, and dear,?And lost in love's and friendship's smile?Be memory of the lonely isle!
III.
Song Continued.
'But if beneath yon southern sky
A plaided stranger roam,?Whose drooping crest and stifled sigh,?And sunken cheek and heavy eye,
Pine for his Highland home;?Then, warrior, then be shine to show?The care that soothes a wanderer's woe;?Remember then thy hap erewhile,?A stranger in the lonely isle.
'Or if on life's uncertain main
Mishap shall mar thy sail;?If faithful, wise, and brave in vain,?Woe, want, and exile thou sustain
Beneath the fickle gale;?Waste not a sigh on fortune changed,?On thankless courts, or friends estranged,?But come where kindred worth shall smile,?To greet thee in the lonely isle.'
IV.
As died the sounds upon the tide,?The shallop reached the mainland side,?And ere his onward way he took,?The stranger cast a lingering look,?Where easily his eye might reach?The Harper on the islet beach,?Reclined against a blighted tree,?As wasted, gray, and worn as he.?To minstrel meditation given,?His reverend brow was raised to heaven,?As from the rising sun to claim?A sparkle of inspiring flame.?His hand, reclined upon the wire,?Seemed watching the awakening fire;?So still he sat as those who wait?Till judgment speak the doom of fate;?So still, as if no breeze might dare?To lift one lock of hoary hair;?So still, as life itself were fled?In the last sound his harp had sped.
V.
Upon a rock with lichens wild,?Beside him Ellen sat and smiled.--?Smiled she to see the stately drake?Lead forth his fleet upon the lake,?While her vexed spaniel from the beach?Bayed at the prize beyond his reach??Yet tell me, then, the maid who knows,?Why deepened on her cheek the rose?--?Forgive, forgive, Fidelity!?Perchance the maiden smiled to see?Yon parting lingerer wave adieu,?And stop and turn to wave anew;?And, lovely ladies, ere your ire?Condemn the heroine of my lyre,?Show me the fair would scorn to spy?And prize such conquest of her eve!
VI.
While yet he loitered on the spot,?It seemed as Ellen marked him not;?But when he turned him to the glade,?One courteous parting sign she made;?And after, oft the knight would say,?That not when prize of festal day?Was dealt him by the brightest fair?Who e'er wore jewel in her hair,?So highly did his bosom swell?As at that simple mute farewell.?Now with a trusty mountain-guide,?And his dark stag-hounds by his side,?He parts,--the maid, unconscious still,?Watched him wind slowly round the