My Muse, then seldom will she wake,
Save by dim wood and silent lake;
She is the wild and rustic maid
Whose foot unsandalled loves to tread
Where the soft greensward is inlaid
With varied moss and thyme;
And, lest the simple lily-braid,
That coronets her temples, fade,
She hides her still in greenwood shade
To meditate her rhyme.

VI

And now she comes! The murmur dear
Of the wild brook hath caught her ear,
The glade hath won her eye;
She longs to join with each blithe rill
That dances down the Highland hill
Her blither melody.

And now my Lucy's way to cheer
She bids Ben-Cruach's echoes hear
How closed the tale my love whilere
Loved for its chivalry.

List how she tells in notes of flame
'Child Roland to the dark tower came!'

CANTO THIRD

I

BEWCASTLE now must keep the hold,
Speir-Adam's steeds must bide in stall,
Of Hartley-burn the bowmen bold

Must only shoot from battled wall;
And Liddesdale may buckle spur,
And Teviot now may belt the brand,
Tarras and Ewes keep nightly stir,
And Eskdale foray Cumberland.
Of wasted fields and plundered flocks
The Borderers bootless may complain; 10
They lack the sword of brave De Vaux,
There comes no aid from Triermain.
That lord on high adventure bound

Hath wandered forth alone,

And day and night keeps watchful round
In the Valley of Saint John.

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Chief where, distinguished from the rest,
Those clustering rocks upreared their
crest,

The dwelling of the fair distressed,
As told gray Lyulph's tale.
Thus as he lay, the lamp of night
Was quivering on his armor bright
In beams that rose and fell,
And danced upon his buckler's boss
That lay beside him on the moss
As on a crystal well.

III

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.

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.

X

Forth from the cave did Roland rush,

O'er crag and stream, through brier and bush;

Yet far he had not sped

Ere sunk was that portentous light
Behind the hills and utter night

Was on the valley spread.

He paused perforce and blew his horn,
And, on the mountain-echoes borne,
Was heard an answering sound,
A wild and lonely trumpet note,
In middle air it seemed to float

High o'er the battled mound;

And sounds were heard as when a guard
Of some proud castle, holding ward,
Pace forth their nightly round.
The valiant Knight of Triermain
Rung forth his challenge-blast again,

But answer came there none;
And mid the mingled wind and rain
Darkling he sought the vale in vain,

Until the dawning shone;

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190

And when it dawned that wondrous
sight

Distinctly seen by meteor light,
It all had passed away!

And that enchanted mount once more
A pile of granite fragments bore
As at the close of day.

XI

Steeled for the deed, De Vaux's heart
Scorned from his vent'rous quest to

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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210

220

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,
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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250

Vaux your scorn? False fiends,

avaunt!'

gore

260

A weighty curtal-axe he bare;
The baleful blade so bright and square,
And the tough shaft of heben wood,
Were oft in Scottish 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
borne,
Crushed lay the copse, the earth was torn,
Till staid at length the ruin dread
Cumbered the torrent's rocky bed,

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