CANTO THIRD

INTRODUCTION I

LONG loved, long wooed, and lately won, My life's best hope, and now mine own! Doth not this rude and Alpine glen Recall our favorite haunts agen? A wild resemblance we can trace, Though reft of every softer grace, As the rough warrior's brow may bear A likeness to a sister fair.

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Full well advised our Highland host
That this wild pass on foot be crossed,
While round Ben-Cruach's mighty base
Wheel the slow steeds and lingering
chase.

The keen old carle, with Scottish pride
He praised his glen and mountains wide;
An eye he bears for nature's face,
Ay, and for woman's lovely grace.
Even in such mean degree we find
The subtle Scot's observing mind;
For nor the chariot nor the train
Conld gape of vulgar wonder gain,
But when old Allan would expound
Of Beal-na-paish the Celtic sound,
His bonnet doffed and bow applied
His legend to my bonny bride;
While Lucy blushed beneath his eye,
Courteous and cautious, shrewd and sly.

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II

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III

But, Lucy, turn thee now to view
Up the fair glen our destined way:
The fairy path that we pursue,
Distinguished but by greener

hue, Winds round the purple brae, While Alpine flowers of varied dye For carpet serve or tapestry. See how the little runnels leap In threads of silver down the steep To swell the brooklet's moan! Seems that the Highland Naiad grieves, Fantastic while her crown she weaves Of rowan, birch, and alder leaves,

So lovely and so lone.

There's no illusion there; these flowers,
That wailing brook, these lovely bowers,
Are, Lucy, all our own;

And, since thine Arthur called thee wife,
Such seems the prospect of his life,
A lovely path on-winding still
By gurgling brook and sloping hill.
"T is true that mortals cannot tell
What waits them in the distant dell;
But be it hap or be it harm,

We tread the pathway arm in arm.

IV

And now, my Lucy, wot'st thou why
I could thy bidding twice deny,
When twice you prayed I would again
Resume the legendary strain
Of the bold knight of Triermain ?
At length yon peevish vow you swore
That you would sue to me no more,
Until the minstrel fit drew near
And made me prize a listening ear.
But, loveliest, when thou first didst pray
Continuance of the knightly lay,
Was it not on the happy day

That made thy hand mine own?
When, dizzied with mine ecstasy,
Nought past, or present, or to be,
Could I or think on, hear, or see,

Save, Lucy, thee alone!

A giddy draught my rapture was
As ever chemist's magic gas.

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Ever he watched and oft he deemed, While on the mound the moonlight streamed,

It altered to his eyes;

Fain would he hope the rocks 'gan change
To buttressed walls their shapeless range,
Fain think by transmutation strange
He saw gray turrets rise.

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But scarce his heart with hope throbbed high

Before the wild illusions fly

Which fancy had conceived, Abetted by an anxious eye

That longed to be deceived.
It was a fond deception all,
Such as in solitary hall

Beguiles the musing eye
When, gazing on the sinking fire,
Bulwark, and battlement, and spire

In the red gulf we spy.

For, seen by moon of middle night,
Or by the blaze of noontide bright,
Or by the dawn of morning light,

Or evening's western flame,
In every tide, at every hour,
In mist, in sunshine, and in shower,
The rocks remained the same.

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De Vaux had marked the sunbeams set At eve upon the coronet

Of that enchanted mound, And seen but crags at random flung, That, o'er the brawling torrent hung,

In desolation frowned.

What sees he by that meteor's lour?-
A bannered castle, keep, and tower
Return the lurid gleam,
With battled walls and buttress fast,
And barbican and ballium vast,
And airy flanking towers that cast

Their shadows on the stream.
"T is no deceit ! distinctly clear
Crenell and parapet appear,
While o'er the pile that meteor drear
Makes momentary pause;
Then forth its solemn path it drew,
And fainter yet and fainter grew
Those gloomy towers upon the view,
As its wild light withdraws.

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part

He walks the vale once more;
But only sees by night or day
That shattered pile of rocks so gray,
Hears but the torrent's roar:

Till when, through hills of azure borne,
The moon renewed her silver horn,
Just at the time her waning ray
Had faded in the dawning day,

A summer mist arose;
Adown the vale the vapors float,
And cloudy undulations moat
That tufted mound of mystic note,

As round its base they close.
And higher now the fleecy tide
Ascends its stern and shaggy side,
Until the airy billows hide

The rock's majestic isle;
It seemed a veil of filmy lawn,
By some fantastic fairy drawn
Around enchanted pile.

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XII

The breeze came softly down the brook,
And, sighing as it blew,

The veil of silver mist it shook
And to De Vaux's eager look

Renewed that wondrous view.

For, though the loitering vapor braved
The gentle breeze, yet oft it waved
Its mantle's dewy fold;

And still when shook that filmy screen
Were towers and bastions dimly seen, 230
And Gothic battlements between

Their gloomy length unrolled.
Speed, speed, De Vaux, ere on thine eye
Once more the fleeting vision die ! —
The gallant knight 'gan speed
As prompt and light as, when the hound
Is opening and the horn is wound,

Careers the hunter's steed.
Down the steep dell his course amain
Hath rivalled archer's shaft;
But ere the mound he could attain
The rocks their shapeless form regain,
And, mocking loud his labor vain,

The mountain spirits laughed.
Far up the echoing dell was borne
Their wild unearthly shout of scorn.

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False fiends,

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A weighty curtal-axe he bare;
The baleful blade so bright and square,
And the tough shaft of heben wood,
Were oft in Scottish gore imbrued.
Backward his stately form he drew,
And at the rocks the weapon threw
Just where one crag's projected crest
Hung proudly balanced o'er the rest.
Hurled with main force the weapon's shock
Rent a huge fragment of the rock.
If by mere strength, 't were hard to tell,
Or if the blow dissolved some spell,
But down the headlong ruin came
With cloud of dust and flash of flame.
Down bank, o'er bush, its course was

And bade the waters' high-swoln tide Seek other passage for its pride.

XIV

When ceased that thunder Triermain
Surveyed the mound's rude front again;
And lo! the ruin had laid bare,
Hewn in the stone, a winding stair

Whose mossed and fractured steps might lend

The means the summit to ascend;
And by whose aid the brave De Vaux
Began to scale these magic rocks,
And soon a platform won
Where, the wild witchery to close,
Within three lances' length arose
The Castle of Saint John!
No misty phantom of the air,

No meteor-blazoned show was there;
In morning splendor full and fair
The massive fortress shone.

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