THE

LAY

OF

THE LAST MINSTREL.

CANTO FIRST.

INTRODUCTION.

THE way was long, the wind was cold,
The Minstrel was infirm and old;

His withered cheek, and tresses gray,
Seemed to have known a better day;
The harp, his sole remaining joy,
Was carried by an orphan boy;
The last of all the bards was he,
Who sung of Border chivalry.

For, well-a-day! their date was fled,
His tuneful brethren all were dead;
And he, neglected and oppressed,
Wished to be with them, and at rest.
No more, on prancing palfrey borne,
He carolled, light as lark at morn;

No longer courted and caressed,

High placed in hall, a welcome guest,

He poured, to lord and lady gay,

The unpremeditated lay;

Old times were changed, old manners gone,

A stranger filled the Stuarts' throne;

The bigots of the iron time

Had called his harmless art a crime.

A wandering Harper, scorned and poor,
He begged his bread from door to door;
And tuned, to please a peasant's ear,
The harp, a king had loved to hear.

He passed where Newark's stately tower Looks out from Yarrow's birchen bower: The Minstrel gazed with wishful eyeNo humbler resting-place was nigh. With hesitating step, at last,

The embattled portal-arch he passed,

Whose ponderous grate and massy bar

Had oft rolled back the tide of war,

But never closed the iron door

Against the desolate and poor.

The Duchess marked his weary pace,

His timid mein, and reverend face,
And bade her page the menials tell,

That they should tend the old man well:
For she had known adversity,

Though born in such a high degree;

In pride of power, in beauty's bloom,

Had wept o'er Monmouth's bloody tomb!

When kindness had his wants supplied,

And the old man was gratified,

Began to rise his minstrel pride:

Anne, Duchess of Buccleuch and Monmouth, representative of the ancient Lords of Buccleuch, and widow of the unfortunate James, Duke of Monmouth, who was beheaded in 1685.