REV. JOHN MARRIOTT, A. M.1
Ashestiel, Ettrick Forest.
THE scenes are desert now, and bare,
Where flourish'd once a forest fair,2
When these waste glens with copse were lined,
And peopled with the hart and hind.
Yon Thorn-perchance whose prickly spears
Have fenced him for three hundred years,
While fell around his green compeers―
Yon lonely Thorn, would he could tell
The changes of his parent dell.3
1 [See a note to The Border Minstrelsy, vol. iv. p. 375.] 2 [See Appendix, Note F.]
[ "The second epistle opens again, with 'chance and change;' but it cannot be denied that the mode in which it is introduced is new and poetical. The comparison of Ettrick Forest, now open and naked, with the state in which it once was-covered with wood, the favourite resort of the royal hunt, and the refuge of daring outlaws-leads the poet to imagine an ancient thorn gifted with the powers of reason,
Since he, so gray and stubborn now,
Waved in each breeze a sapling bough;
Would he could tell how deep the shade
A thousand mingled branches made ;
How broad the shadows of the oak,
How clung the rowan1 to the rock,
And through the foliage show'd his head,
With narrow leaves and berries red;
What pines on every mountain sprung,
O'er every dell what birches hung,
In every breeze what aspens shook,
What alders shaded every brook!
Here, in my shade," methinks he'd say,
"The mighty stag at noontide lay:
The wolf I've seen, a fiercer game,
(The neighbouring dingle bears his name,)
With lurching step around me prowl,
And stop, against the moon to howl;
The mountain-boar, on battle set,
His tusks upon my stem would whet;
While doe, and roe, and red-deer good,
Have bounded by, through gay greenwood.
and relating the various scenes which it has witnessed during a period of three hundred years. A melancholy train of fancy is naturally encouraged by the idea."-Monthly Review.]
[MS.-"How broad the ash his shadows flung,
How to the rock the rowan clung."]
Then oft, from Newark's1 riven tower,
Sallied a Scottish monarch's power:
A thousand vassals muster'd round,
With horse, and hawk, and horn, and hound;
And I might see the youth intent,
Guard every pass with crossbow bent;
And through the brake the rangers stalk,
And falc'ners hold the ready hawk;
And foresters, in greenwood trim,
Lead in the leash the gazehounds grim,
Attentive, as the bratchet's2 bay
From the dark covert drove the prey,
To slip them as he broke away.
The startled quarry bounds amain,
As fast the gallant greyhounds strain;
Whistles the arrow from the bow,
Answers the harquebuss below;
While all the rocking hills reply,
To hoof-clang, hound, and hunters' cry,
And bugles ringing lightsomely."
Of such proud huntings, many tales
Yet linger in our lonely dales,
Up pathless Ettrick and on Yarrow,
Where erst the outlaw drew his arrow.3
1 [See Notes to The Lay of the Last Minstrel, vol. i. of this edition.]
8 The tale of the Outlaw Murray, who held out Newark Castle and Ettrick Forest against the King, may be found in
But not more blithe that sylvan court,
Than we have been at humbler sport;
Though small our pomp, and mean our game,
Our mirth, dear Marriott, was the same.
Remember'st thou my greyhounds 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 chase,
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,
And held poetic talk between;
Nor hill, nor brook, we paced along,
But had its legend or its song.
All silent now-for now are still
Thy bowers, untenanted Bowhill! 1
No longer, from thy mountains dun,
The yeoman hears the well-known gun,
And while his honest heart glows warm,
At thought of his paternal farm,
Round to his mates a brimmer fills,
And drinks, "The Chieftain of the Hills!"
The Border Minstrelsy, vol. i. In the Macfarlane MS., among other causes of James the Fifth's charter to the burgh of Selkirk, is mentioned, that the citizens assisted him to suppress this dangerous outlaw.
1 [A seat of the Duke of Buccleuch on the Yarrow, in Ettrick Forest. See Notes to The Lay of the Last Minstrel.]
|