INTRODUCTION. THE way was long, the wind was cold, The Minstrel was infirm and old; His withered cheek, and tresses gray, Seemed 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, For, well-a-day! their date was fled, No longer courted and caressed, High placed in hall, a welcome guest, He poured, to lord and lady gay, The unpremeditated lay: Old times were changed, old manners gone; A stranger filled the Stuarts' throne; The bigots of the iron time Had called his harmless art a crime. A wandering Harper, scorned and poor, He passed where Newark's stately tower Looks out from Yarrow's birchen bower: The Minstrel gazed with wishful eyeNo humbler resting-place was nigh. With hesitating step, at last, The embattled portal-arch he passed, Whose ponderous grate and massy bar Had oft rolled back the tide of war, But never closed the iron door Against the desolate and poor. The Duchess marked his weary pace, That they should tend the old man well: 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 supplied, And the old man was gratified, Began to rise his minstrel pride: * Anne, Duchess of Buccleuch and Monmouth, representative of the ancient lords of Buccleuch, and widow of the unfortunate James, Duke of Monmouth, who was beheaded in 1685. And he began to talk anon, Of good Earl Francis, dead and gone, And of Earl Walter,† rest him God! 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 obtained; Francis Scott, Earl of Buccleuch, father of the Duchess. + Walter, Earl of Buccleuch, grandfather of the Duchess, and a celebrated warrior. Perchance he wished his boon denied: For, when to tune his harp he tried, His trembling hand had lost the ease, And scenes, long past, of joy and pain, The pitying Duchess praised its chime, And gave him heart, and gave him time, Till every string's according glee And then, he said, he would full fain He could recal 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 played it to King Charles the Good, When he kept court in Holyrood; And much he wished, yet feared, to try The long-forgotten melody. |