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THE

LAY

OF

THE LAST MINSTREL.

CANTO FIFTH.

1

THE

LAY OF THE LAST MINSTREL.

CANTO FIFTH.

I.

CALL it not vain :-they do not err,

Who say, that, when the Poet dies,
Mute Nature mourns her worshipper,
And celebrates his obsequies;

Who say, tall cliff, and cavern lone,
For the departed bard make moan;
That mountains weep in crystal rill;
That flowers in tears of balm distil;

Through his loved groves that breezes sigh,

And oaks, in deeper groan, reply;

And rivers teach their rushing wave

To murmur dirges round his

grave.

II.

Not that, in sooth, o'er mortal urn

Those things inanimate can mourn;
But that the stream, the wood, the gale,

Is vocal with the plaintive wail

Of those, who, else forgotten long,
Lived in the poet's faithful song,
And, with the poet's parting breath,
Whose memory feels a second death.
The maid's pale shade, who wails her lot,

That love, true love, should be forgot,

From rose and hawthorn shakes the tear

Upon the gentle minstrel's bier

The phantom knight, his glory fled,

Mourns o'er the field he heaped with dead;

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