"Whistles the arrow from the bow, "Answers the harquebuss below; "While all the rocking hills reply, Of such proud huntings, many tales Up pathless Ettricke, and on Yarrow, But not more blithe that sylvan court, Than we have been at humbler sport; Our mirth, dear Marriot, was the same. Remember'st thou my grey-hounds true? O'er holt, or hill, there never flew, From slip, or leash, there never sprang, More fleet of foot, or sure of fang. Nor dull, between each merry chace, Pass'd by the intermitted space; For we had fair resource in store, In Classic, and in Gothic lore: We mark'd each memorable scene, Nor hill, nor brook, we paced along, Round to his mates a brimmer fills, And drinks, "The Chieftain of the Hills!" No fairy forms, in Yarrow's bowers, Trip o'er the walks, or tend the flowers, And ape, in manly step and tone, The majesty of Oberon : And she is gone, whose lovely face With form more light, or face more fair. No more the widow's deafen'd ear Grows quick that lady's step to hear: At noontide she expects her not, Nor busies her to trim the cot; From Yair,-which hills so closely bind, Scarce can the Tweed his passage find, Though much he fret, and chafe, and toil, Till all his eddying currents boil, Her long-descended lord is gone, And left us by the stream alone. Just at the age 'twixt boy and youth, When thought is speech, and speech is truth. Close to my side, with what delight They press'd to hear of Wallace wight, I call'd his ramparts holy ground!* Ah, happy boys! such feelings pure, They will not, cannot, long endure; *There is, on a high mountainous ridge above the farm of Ashestiel, a fosse called Wallace's Trench. Condemn'd to stem the world's rude tide, For Fate shall thrust you from the shore, Of the lone mountain, and the rill; But, well I hope, without a sigh, On the free hours that we have spent, Together, on the brown hill's bent. When, musing on companions gone, We doubly feel ourselves alone, Something, my friend, we yet may gain, There is a pleasure in this pain : It sooths the love of lonely rest, Deep in each gentler heart impress❜d. |