"Back, beardless boy !" he sternly said,
"Back, minion! hold'st thou thus at naught
The lesson I so lately taught?
This roof, the Douglas, and that maid,
Thank thou for punishment delay'd."
Eager as greyhound on his game,
Fiercely with Roderick grappled Græme.'
"Perish my name, if aught afford
Its Chieftain safety save his sword!"
Thus as they strove, their desperate hand'
Griped to the dagger or the brand,
And death had been-but Douglas rose,
And thrust between the struggling foes
His giant strength:-" Chieftains, forego!
I hold the first who strikes, my foe.-3
Madmen, forbear your frantic jar!
What is the Douglas fall'n so far,
His daughter's hand is doom'd the spoil
Of such dishonorable broil !"
Sullen and slowly they unclasp,
As struck with shame, their desperate grasp, And each upon his rival glared,
With foot advanced, and blade half bared.
Ere yet the brands aloft were flung,
Margaret on Roderick's mantle hung,
And Malcolm heard his Ellen's scream,
As, falter'd through terrific dream.
Then Roderick plunged in sheath his sword,
And veil'd his wrath in scornful word.
"Rest safe till morning; pity 'twere
Such cheek should feel the midnight air!"
Then mayst thou to James Stuart tell,
Roderick will keep the lake and fell,
Nor lackey, with his freeborn clan,
The pageant pomp of earthly man.
More would he of Clan-Alpine know,
Thou canst our strength and passes show.-
Malise, what ho!"-his henchman came;"
"Give our safe-conduct to the Græme."
Young Malcolm answer'd, calm and bold,
"Fear nothing for thy favorite hold;
The spot, an angel deign'd to grace,
Is bless'd, though robbers haunt the place.
Thy churlish courtesy for those
Reserve, who fear to be thy foes.
As safe to me the mountain way
At midnight as in blaze of day.
1 "There is something foppish and out of character in Malcolm's rising to lead out Ellen from her own parlor; and the sort of wrestling-match that takes place between the rival chieftains on the occasion, is humiliating and indecorous."JEFFREI.
2 MS.-" Thus as they strove, each better hand Grasp'd for the dagger or the brand."
The Author has to apologize for the inadvertent appropriaion o a whole line from the tragedy of Douglas,
Though with his boldest at his back Even Roderick Dhu beset the track.Brave Douglas,-lovely Ellen,-nay, Naught here of parting will I say. Earth does not hold a lonesome glen, So secret, but we meet agen.Chieftain! we too shall find an hour."He said, and left the silvan bower.
Old Allan follow'd to the strand
(Such was the Douglas's command),
And anxious told, how, on the morn,
The stern Sir Roderick deep had sworn,
The Fiery Cross should circle o'er
Dale, glen, and valley, down and moor
Much were the peril to the Græme,
From those who to the signal came;
Far up the lake 'twere safest land,
Himself would row him to the strand.
He gave his counsel to the wind,
While Malcolm did, unheeding, bind,
Round dirk and pouch and broadsword roll'd,
His ample plaid in tighten'd fold,
And stripp'd his limbs to such array
As best might suit the watery way,-
Then spoke abrupt: "Farewell to thee,
Pattern of old fidelity!"
The Minstrel's hand he kindly press'd,-
"O! could I point a place of rest!
My sovereign holds in ward my land,
My uncle leads my vassal band;
To tame his foes, his friends to aid,
Poor Malcolm has but heart and blade.
Yet, if there be one faithful Græme,
Who loves the Chieftain of his name,
Not long shall honor'd Douglas dwell,
Like hunted stag in mountain cell;
Nor, ere yon pride-swoll'n robber dare,-
I may not give the rest to air!
Tell Roderick Dhu I owe him naught,
Not the poor service of a boat,
To waft me to yon mountain-side."
Then plunged he in the flashing tide.'
Bold o'er the flood his head he bore,
And stoutly steer'd him from the shore,
And Allan strain'd his anxious eye,
"I hold the first who strikes, my foe."
-Note to the second edition.
4 MS.-" Sullen and slow the rivals bold
Loosed, at his hest, their desperate hold,
But either still on other glared," &c.
5 See Appendix, Note 2 A.
See Appendix, Note 2 B.
7 MS." He spoke, and plunged into the tide."
The mountain-shadows on her breast
Were neither broken nor at rest;
In bright uncertainty they lie,
Like future joys to Fancy's eye.
The water-lily to the light
Her chalice rear'd of silver bright;
The doe awoke, and to the lawn,
Begemm'd with dew-drops, led her fawn;
The gray mist left the mountain side,
The torrent show'd its glistening pride;
Invisible in flecked sky,
The lark sent down her revelry;
The blackbird and the speckled thrush
Good-morrow gave from brake and brush:*
In answer coo'd the cushat dove
Her notes of peace, and rest, and love.
No thought of peace, no thought of rest,
Assuaged the storm in Roderick's breast
With sheathed broadsword in his hand,
Abrupt he paced the islet strand,
And eyed the rising sun, and laid
His hand on his impatient blade.
Beneath a rock, his vassals' care
Was prompt the ritual to prepare,
With deep and deathful meaning fraught;
For such Antiquity had taught
Was preface meet, ere yet abroad
The Cross of Fire should take its road.
The shrinking band stood oft aghast
At the impatient glance he cast;—
Such glance the mountain eagle threw,
As, from the cliffs of Benvenue,
She spread her dark sails on the wind,
And, high in middle heaven, reclined,
With her broad shadow on the lake,
Silenced the warblers of the brake.
A heap of wither'd boughs was piled,
Of juniper and rowan wild,
Mingled with shivers from the oak,
Rent by the lightning's recent stroke.
Brian, the Hermit, by it stood,
Barefooted in his frock and hood.
His grisled beard and matted hair
Obscured a visage of despair;
His naked arms and legs, seam'd o'er,
Invisible in fleecy cloud,
The lark sent down her matins loud; The light mist left,' &c.
The scars of frantic penance bore.
That monk, of savage form and face,'
The impending danger of his race
Had drawn from deepest solitude,
Far in Benharrow's bosom rude.
Not his the mien of Christian priest,
But Druid's, from the grave released,
Whose harden'd heart and eye might brook
On human sacrifice to look;
And much, 'twas said, of heathen lore
Mix'd in the charms he mutter'd o'er.
The hallow'd creed gave only worse'
And deadlier emphasis of curse;
No peasant sought that Hermit's prayer,
His cave the pilgrim shunn'd with care,
The eager huntsman knew his bound,
And in mid chase call'd off his hound;
Or if, in lonely glen or strath,
The desert-dweller met his path,
He pray'd, and sign'd the cross between,
While terror took devotion's mien.3
Of Brian's birth strange tales were told.
His mother watch'd a midnight fold,
Built deep within a dreary glen,
Where scatter'd lay the bones of men,
In some forgotten battle slain,
And bleach'd by drifting wind and rain.
It might have tamed a warrior's heart,"
To view such mockery of his art!
The knot-grass fetter'd there the hand,
Which once could burst an iron band;
Beneath the broad and ample bone,
That buckler'd heart to fear unknown,
A feeble and a timorous guest,
The field-fure framed her lowly nest;
There the slow blind-worm left his slime
On the fleet limbs that mock'd at time;
And there, too, lay the leader's skull,"
Still wreathed with chaplet, flush'd and full,
For heath-bell with her purple bloom,
1 See Appendix, Note 2 D. 2 MS.
While the bless'd creed gave only worse." MS." He pray'd with many a cross between, And terror took devotion's mien.' "" Aupendix, Note 2 E.
"T., is something of pride in the perilous hour, Whate'er be the shape in which death may lower; F Fame is there to say who bleeds,
Ard Honor's eye on daring deeds!
But when all is past, it is humbling to tread
O'er the weltering field of the tombless dead,
And see worms of the earth, and fowls of the air,
Beasts of the forest, all gathering there;
All regarding man as their prey,
All rejoicing in his decay."-- BYRON-Sirge of Corinth.
Remove yon skull from out the scattered heaps.
Is that a temple where a god may dwell?
Why, even the worm at last disdains her shattered cell!
Supplied the bonnet and the plume."
All night, in this sad glen, the maid
Sate, shrouded in her mantle's shade:
-She said, no shepherd sought her side,
No hunter's hand her snood untied,
Yet ne'er again to braid her hair
The virgin snood did Alice wear;
Gone was her maiden glee and sport,
Her maiden girdle all too short,
Nor sought she, from that fatal night,
Or holy church or blessed rite,
But lock'd her secret in her breast,
And died in travail, unconfess'd.
Alone, among his young compeers,
Was Brian from his infant years;
A moody and heart-broken boy,
Estranged from sympathy and joy,
Bearing each taunt which careless tongue
On his mysterious lineage flung.
Whole nights he spent by moonlight pale,
To wood and stream his hap to wail,
Till, frantic, he as truth received
What of his birth the crowd believed,
And sought, in mist and meteor fire,
To meet and know his Phantom Sire!
In vain, to soothe his wayward fate,
The cloister oped her pitying gate;
In vain, the learning of the age
Unclasp'd the sable-letter'd page;
Even in its treasures he could find
Food for the fever of his mind.
Eager he read whatever tells
Of magic, cabala, and spells,
And every dark pursuit allied
To curious and presumptuous pride;
Till with fired brain and nerves o'er-
And heart with mystic horrors wrung, Desperate he sought Benharrow's den, And hid him from the haunts of men.
Look on its broken arch, its ruin'd wall,
Its chambers desolate, and portals foul;
Yet this was once Ambition's airy hall,
The dome of thought, the palace of the soul;
Behold through each lack-lustre, eyeless hole,
The gay recess of wisdom and of wit,
And passion's host, that never brook'd control.
Can all saint, sage, or sophist ever writ,
People this lonely tower, this tenement refit ?"
Childe Harold.
7" These reflections on an ancient field of battle afford the most remarkable instance of false taste in all Mr. Scott's writings. Yet the brevity and variety of the images serve well to show, that even in his errors there are traces of a powerful genius."-JE FREY.
See Appendix, Note 2 F.
9 MS.-"Till, driven to parensy, he believed
The legend of his birth received."
The desert gave him visions wild,
Such as might suit the spectre's child.'
Where with black cliffs the torrents toil,
He watch'd the wheeling eddies boil,
Till, from their foam, his dazzled eyes
Reheld the River Demon rise;
The mountain mist took form and limb,
Of noontide hag, or goblin grim;
The midnight wind came wild and dread,.
Swell'd with the voices of the dead;
Far on the future battle-heath
His eye beheld the ranks of death:
Thus the lone Seer, from mankind hurl'd,
Shaped forth a disembodied world.
One lingering sympathy of mind
Still bound him to the mortal kind;
The only parent he could claim
Of ancient Alpine's lineage came.
Late had he heard, in prophet's dream,
The fatal Ben-Shie's boding scream;"
Sounds, too, had come in midnight blast,
Of charging steed's careering fast
Along Benharrow's shingly side,
Where mortal horseman ne'er might
ride;'
The thunderbolt had split the pine,—
All augur'd ill to Alpine's line.
He girt his loins, and came to show
The signals of impending woe,
And now stood prompt to bless or ban,
As bade the Chieftain of his clan.
"Twas all prepared;-and from the rock,
A goat, the patriarch of the flock,
Before the kindling pile was laid,
And pierced by Roderick's ready blade.
Patient the sickening victim eyed
The life-blood ebb in crimson tide,
Down his clogg'd beard and shaggy limb,
Till darkness glazed his eyeballs dim.
The grisly priest, with murmuring prayer,
A slender crosslet form'd with care,
A cubit's length in measure due;
The shaft and limbs were rods of yew,
Whose parents in Inch-Cailliach wave
Their shadows o'er Clan-Alpine's grave,
And answering Lomond's breezes deep,
Soothe many a chieftain's endless sleep.
The Cross, thus form'd, he held on high,
With wasted hand and haggard eye,
And strange and mingled feelings woke, While his anathema he spoke.
"Woe to the clansman, who shall view
This symbol of sepulchral yew,
Forgetful that its branches grew
Where weep the heavens their holiest dew
On Alpine's dwelling low!
Deserter of his Chieftain's trust,
He ne'er shall mingle with their dust,
But, from his sires and kindred thrust,
Each clansman's execration just
Shall doom him wrath and woe."
He paused; the word the vassals took,
With forward step and fiery look,
On high their naked brands they shook,
Their clattering targets wildly strook;
And first in murmur low,
Then, like the billow in his course,
That far to seaward finds his source,
And flings to shore his muster'd force,
Burst, with loud roar, their answer hoarse,
"Woe to the traitor, woe!"
Ben-an's gray scalp the accents knew,
The joyous wolf from covert drew,
The exulting eagle scream'd afar,—
They knew the voice of Alpine's war.
The shout was hush'd on lake and fell,
The monk resumed his mutter'd spell:
Dismal and low its accents came,
The while he scathed the Cross with flame;
And the few words that reach'd the air,
Although the holiest name was there,'
Had more of blasphemy than prayer.
But when he shook above the crowd
Its kindled points, he spoke aloud :—
"Woe to the wretch who fails to rear
At this dread sign the ready spear!
For, as the flames this symbol sear,
Her home, the refuge of his fear,
A kindred fate shall know;
Far o'er its roof the volumed flame
Clan-Alpine's vengeance shall proclaim
While maids and matrons on his name
Shall call down wretchedness and shame
And infamy and woe."
Then rose the cry of females, shrill
As goss-hawk's whistle on the hill,
Denouncing misery and ill,
4 See Appendix, Note 2 K.
5 MS.-" Our warriors on his worthless bust
Shall speak disgrace and woe."
MS.-"Their clattering targets hardly strook;
And first they mutter'd low."
MS." Although the holy name was there."
Mingled with childhood's babbling trill
Of curses stammer'd slow;
Answering, with imprecation dread,
"Sunk be his home in embers red!
And cursed be the meanest shed
That e'er shall hide the houseless head,
We doom to want and woe!"
A sharp and shrieking echo gave,
Coir-Uriskin, thy goblin cave!
And the gray pass where birches wave,
On Beala-nam-bo.
Then deeper paused the priest anew,
And hard his laboring breath he drew,
While, with set teeth and clenched hand,
And eyes that glow'd like fiery brand,
He meditated curse more dread,
And deadlier on the clansman's head,
Who, summon'd to his Chieftain's aid,
The signal saw and disobey'd.
The crosslet's points of sparkling wood
He quench'd among the bubbling blood,
And, as again the sign he rear'd,
Hollow and hoarse his voice was heard:
66 When flits this Cross from man to man,
Vich-Alpine's summons to his clan,
Burst be the ear that fails to heed!
Palsied the foot that shuns to speed!
May ravens tear the careless eyes,
Wolves make the coward heart their prize!
As sinks that blood-stream in the earth,
So may his heart's-blood drench his hearth!
As dies in hissing gore the spark,
Quench thou his light, Destruction dark,
And be the grace to him denied,
Bought by this sign to all beside !"
He ceased; no echo gave agen
The murmur of the deep Amen.'
Then Roderick, with impatient look,
From Brian's hand the symbol took:
"Speed, Malise, speed !" he said, and gave
The crosslet to his henchman brave.
"The muster-place be Lanrick mead-
Instant the time-speed, Malise, speed!"
Like heath-bird, when the hawks pursue,
A barge across Loch Katrine flew ;
High stood the henchman on the prow;
So rapidly the barge-men row,
The bubbles, where they launch'd the boat,
1 MS.-"The slowly mutter'd deep Amen." MS.-" Murlagan is the spot decreed." See Appendix, Note 2 L.
MS.-"Dread messenger of fate and fear,
Heraid of danger, fate, and fear,
Stretch onward in thy fleet career!
Were all unbroken and afloat,
Dancing in foam and ripple stili
When it had near'd the mainland hill;
And from the silver beach's side
Still was the prow three fathom wide,
When lightly bounded to the land
The messenger of blood and brand.
Speed, Malise, speed! the dun deer's hide
On fleeter foot was never tied."
Speed, Malise, speed! such cause of haste
Thine active sinews never braced.
Bend 'gainst the steepy hill thy breast,
Burst down like torrent from its crest;
With short and springing footstep pass
The trembling bog and false morass;
Across the brook like roebuck bound,
And thread the brake like questing hound;
The crag is high, the scaur is deep,
Yet shrink not from the desperate leap:
Parch'd are thy burning lips and brow,
Yet by the fountain pause not now;
Herald of battle, fate, and fear,*
Stretch onward in thy fleet career!
The wounded hind thou track'st not now,
Pursuest not maid through greenwood bough
Nor pliest thou now thy flying pace,
With rivals in the mountain race;
But, danger, death, and warrior deed,
Are in thy course-speed, Malise, speed!
Fast as the fatal symbol flies,
In arms the huts and hamlets rise;
From winding glen, from upland brown,
They pour'd each hardy tenant down.
Nor slack'd the messenger his pace;
He show'd the sign, he named the place,
And, pressing forward like the wind,
Left clamor and surprise behind.*
The fisherman forsook the strand,
The swarthy smith took dirk and brand;
With changed cheer, the mower blithe
Left in the half-cut swathe the scythe
The herds without a keeper stray'd,
The plough was in mid-furrow staid,
The falc'ner toss'd his hawk away,
The hunter left the stag at bay;
Prompt at the signal of alarms,
Each son of Alpine rush'd to arms;
So swept the tumult and affray
Thou track'st not now the stricken doe,
Nor maiden coy through greenwood bough."
B "The description of the starting of the fiery cross' bears more marks of labor than most of Mr. Scott's poetry, and borders, perhaps, upon straining and exaggeration; yet shows great power."-JEFFREY.
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