Poetical Works

THE Poem is intended to illustrate the customs and manners which anciently prevailed on the Borders of England and Scotland. The inhabitants, living in a state partly pastoral and partly warlike, and combining habits of constant depredation with the influence of a rade spirit of chivalry, were often engaged in scenes highly susceptible of poetical ornament. As the description of scenery and manners was more the object of the author than a combined and regular narrative, the plan of the Ancient Metrical Romance was adopted, which allows greater latitude in this respect than would be consistent with the dignity of a regular Poem. The same model offered other facilities, as it permits an occasional alteration of measure, which, in some degree, authorises the change of rhythm in the text. The machinery, also, adopted from popular belief, would have seemed puerile in a poem which did not partake of the rudeness of the old Ballad, or Metrical Romance.

For these reasons the poem was put into the mouth of an ancient Minstrel, the last of the race, who, as he is supposed to have survived the Revolution, might have caught somewhat of the refinement of modern poetry, without losing the simplicity of his original model. The date of the tale itself is about the middle of the sixteenth century, when most of the personages actually flourished. The time occupied by the action is Three Nights and Three Days.

INTRODUCTION.

THE way was long, the wind was cold,
The Minstrel was infirm and old;
His wither'd cheek, and tresses gray,
Seem'd 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, welladay! their date was fled,
His tuneful brethren all were dead;

And he, neglected and oppress'd,
Wish'd to be with them, and at rest.
No more on prancing palfrey borne,
He caroll'd, light as lark at morn ;
No longer courted and caress'd,
High placed in hall, a welcome guest,
He pour'd to lord and lady gay
The unpremeditated lay:
Old times were changed, old manners
gone;

A stranger fill'd the Stuarts' throne;

The bigots of the iron time
Had call'd his harmless art a crime.
A wandering Harper, scorn'd and poor,
He begg'd his bread from door to door,
And tuned, to please a peasant's ear,
The harp a king had loved to hear.

He pass'd where Newark's stately

tower

Looks out from Yarrow's birchen bower :

The Minstrel gazed with wishful eye-
No humbler resting-place was nigh;
With hesitating step at last

The embattled portal arch he pass'd,
Whose ponderous grate and massy bar
Had oft roll'd back the tide of war,
But never closed the iron door
Against the desolate and poor.
The Duchess mark'd his weary pace,
His timid mien, 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 sup-
plied,

And the old man was gratified,
Began to rise his minstrel pride :
And he began to talk anon

Of good Earl Francis, dead and gone,
And of Earl Walter, rest him, God!
A braver ne'er to battle rode;
And how full many a tale he knew
Of the old warriors of Buccleuch :
And, would the noble Duchess deign
To listen to an old man's strain,
Though stiff his hand, his voice though
weak,

He thought even yet, the sooth to speak,

That, if she loved the harp to hear,
He could make music to her ear.

The humble boon was soon obtain'd; The aged Minstrel audience gain'd. But, when he reach'd the room of state,

Where she with all her ladies sate,
Perchance he wish'd his boon denied:
For, when to tune his harp he tried,
His trembling hand had lost the ease,
Which marks security to please;
And scenes long past, of joy and pain,
Came wildering o'er his aged brain-
He tried to tune his harp in vain!
The pitying Duchess prais'd its
chime,

And gave him heart, and gave him time,

Till every string's according glee
Was blended into harmony.
And then, he said, he would full fain
He could recall an ancient strain
He never thought to sing again.
It was not framed for village churls,
But for high dames and mighty earls;
He had play'd it to King Charles the
Good,

When he kept court in Holyrood;
The long-forgotten melody.
And much he wish'd, yet fear'd, to try

Amid the strings his fingers stray'd,
And an uncertain warbling made,
And oft he shook his hoary head.
But when he caught the measure
wild,

The old man rais'd his face, and smil'd;

And lighten'd up his faded eye
With all a poet's ecstasy.

In varying cadence, soft or strong,
He swept the sounding chords along :
The present scene, the future lot,
His toils, his wants, were all forgot;
Cold diffidence, and age's frost,
In the full tide of song were lost;
Each blank, in faithless memory void,
The poet's glowing thought supplied;
And, while his harp responsive rung,
'Twas thus the LATEST MINSTREL Sung.

Canto First.

Pillow'd on buckler cold and hard;

They carv'd at the meal
With gloves of steel,

THE feast was over in Branksome And they drank the red wine through

tower,

And the Ladye had gone to her secret

bower;

Her bower that was guarded by word and by spell,

Deadly to hear, and deadly to tellJesu Maria, shield us well!

No living wight, save the Ladye alone, Had dared to cross the threshold stone.

II.

The tables were drawn, it was idlesse all; Knight, and page, and household squire,

Loiter'd through the lofty hall,

Or crowded round the ample fire: The stag-hounds, weary with the chase,

Lay stretch'd upon the rushy floor, And urg'd, in dreams, the forest race From Teviot-stone to Eskdale-moor.

III.

Nine-and-twenty knights of fame Hung their shields in Branksome hall;

Nine-and-twenty squires of name Brought them their steeds to bower

from stall;

Nine-and-twenty yeomen tall Waited, duteous, on them all: They were all knights of mettle true,

Kinsmen to the bold Buccleuch.

IV.

Ten of them were sheath'd in steel,
With belted sword, and spur on heel:
They quitted not their harness bright,
Neither by day, nor yet by night:

They lay down to rest,
With corslet laced,

the helmet barr'd.

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Hung Margaret o'er her slaughter'd sire,

And wept in wild despair. But not alone the bitter tear Had filial grief supplied; For hopeless love and anxious fear Had lent their mingled tide: Nor in her mother's alter'd eye Dar'd she to look for sympathy. Her lover, 'gainst her father's clan, With Carr in arms had stood, When Mathouse-burn to Melrose ran All purple with their blood; And well she knew, her mother dread, Before Lord Cranstoun she should wed, Would see her on her dying bed.

XI.

Of noble race the Ladye came;

The slaughter'd chiefs, the mortal jar, Her father was a clerk of fame,

Vengeance, deep-brooding o'er the And of his skill, as bards avow,

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