Rather with Nature's frowns than smiles,
Full oft their careless humors please
By sportive
names from scenes like these.
I would old Torquil were to show
His Maidens with their breasts of snow,
Or that my noble liege were nigh
To hear his Nurse sing lullaby
The Maids- tall cliffs with breakers
Onward still mute, they kept the track;
'Tell who ye be, or else stand back,’
Said Bruce; in deserts when they meet,
Men pass not as in peaceful street.'
Still at his stern command they stood, 420
And proffered greeting brief and rude,
But acted courtesy so ill
'So said I and believed in sooth,'
Ronald replied, 'I spoke the truth.
Yet now I spy, by yonder stone,
Five men- they mark us and come on;
And by their badge on bonnet borne
I guess them of the land of Lorn,
Foes to my liege.'-'So let it be;
I've faced worse odds than five to three
But the poor page can little aid;
Then be our battle thus arrayed,
If our free passage they contest;
Cope thou with two, I'll match the rest.'-
Not so, my liege-for, by my life,
This sword shall meet the treble strife;
My strength, my skill in arms, more small,
And less the loss should Ronald fall.
But islesmen soon to soldiers grow,
Allan has sword as well as bow,
And were my monarch's order given,
As seemed of fear and not of will.
'Wanderers we are, as you may be;
Men hither driven by wind and sea,
Who, if you list to taste our cheer,
Will share with you this fallow deer.'
If from the sea, where lies your bark?'
Ten fathom deep in ocean dark!
Wrecked yesternight: but we are men
Who little sense of peril ken.
The shades come down the day is shut-
Will you go with us to our hut ?'
'Our vessel waits us in the bay;
Thanks for your proffer- have good-
day.'
There will she now be sought in vain.
We saw her from the mountain head
When, with Saint George's blazon red
A southern vessel bore in sight,
And yours raised sail and took to flight.'
Now, by the rood, unwelcome news!' Thus with Lord Ronald communed Bruce; 'Nor rests there light enough to show If this their tale be true or no. The men seem bred of churlish kind, Yet mellow nuts have hardest rind; We will go with them food and fire And sheltering roof our wants require. Sure guard 'gainst treachery will we keep, And watch by turns our comrades' sleep. Good fellows, thanks; your guests we'll be, And well will pay the courtesy. Come, lead us where your lodging lies Nay, soft! we mix not companies. Show us the path o'er crag and stone, And we will follow you; — lead on.'
They reached the dreary cabin, made Of sails against a rock displayed,
And there on entering found
A slender boy, whose form and mien
Ill suited with such savage scene,
In and cloak of velvet green,
cap
Low seated on the ground.
His garb was such as minstrels wear,
Dark was his hue, and dark his hair,
His youthful cheek was marred by care,
His eyes in sorrow drowned.
Whence this poor boy?'- As Ronald
spoke,
The voice his trance of anguish broke;
As if awaked from ghastly dream,
He raised his head with start and scream,
And wildly gazed around;
Then to the wall his face he turned, And his dark neck with blushes burned.
'Kind host,' he said, 'our needs require
A separate board and separate fire;
For know that on a pilgrimage
Wend I, my comrade, and this page.
And, sworn to vigil and to fast
Long as this hallowed task shall last,
We never doff the plaid or sword,
Or feast us at a stranger's board,
And never share one common sleep,
But one must still his vigil keep.
Thus, for our separate use, good friend,
We'll hold this hut's remoter end.'-
'A churlish vow,' the elder said,
'And hard, methinks, to be obeyed.
How say you, if, to wreak the scorn
That pays our kindness harsh return,
We should refuse to share our meal?'-3.29
Then say we that our swords are steel!
And our vow binds us not to fast
Where gold or force may buy repast.' —
Their host's dark brow grew keen and
Not in his dangerous host confides The king, but wary watch provides. Ronald keeps ward till midnight past, Then wakes the king, young Allan last; Thus ranked, to give the youthful page The rest required by tender age. What is Lord Ronald's wakeful thought 560 To chase the languor toil had brought? For deem not that he deigned to throw Much care upon such coward foe He thinks of lovely Isabel When at her foeman's feet she fell, Nor less when, placed in princely selle, She glanced on him with favoring eyes At Woodstock when he won the prize. Nor, fair in joy, in sorrow fair, In pride of place as mid despair, Must she alone engross his care. His thoughts to his betrothed bride, To Edith, turn - O, how decide, When here his love and heart are given, And there his faith stands plight to Heaven!
No drowsy ward 't is his to keep, For seldom lovers long for sleep. Till sung his midnight hymn the owl, Answered the dog-fox with his howl, Then waked the king at his request, 580 Lord Ronald stretched himself to rest.
What spell was good King Robert's, say, To drive the weary night away?
To Allan's eyes was harder task
The weary watch their safeties ask.
He trimmed the fire and gave to shine
With bickering light the splintered pine;
Then gazed awhile where silent laid
Their hosts were shrouded by the plaid.
But little fear waked in his mind,
For he was bred of martial kind,
And, if to manhood he arrive,
May match the boldest knight alive.
Then thought he of his mother's tower, 610
His little sister's greenwood bower,
How there the Easter-gambols pass,
And of Dan Joseph's lengthened mass.
But still before his weary eye
In rays prolonged the blazes die-
Again he roused him on the lake
Looked forth where now the twilight-flake
Of pale cold dawn began to wake.
On Coolin's cliffs the mist lay furled,
The morning breeze the lake had curled, 620
The short dark waves, heaved to the land,
With ceaseless plash kissed cliff or sand;
It was a slumbrous sound - he turned
To tales at which his youth had burned,
Of pilgrim's path by demon crossed,
Of sprightly elf or yelling ghost,
Of the wild witch's baneful cot,
And mermaid's alabaster grot,
Who bathes her limbs in sunless well
Deep in Strathaird's enchanted cell.
Thither in fancy rapt he flies,
And on his sight the vaults arise;
That hut's dark walls he sees no more,
His foot is on the marble floor,
And o'er his head the dazzling spars
Not so awoke the king! his hand
Snatched from the flame a knotted brand,
The nearest weapon of his wrath;
With this he crossed the murderer's path
And venged young Allan well!
The spattered brain and bubbling blood 650
Hissed on the half-extinguished wood,
The miscreant gasped and fell!
Nor rose in peace the Island Lord;
One caitiff died upon his sword,
And one beneath his grasp lies prone
In mortal grapple overthrown.
But while Lord Ronald's dagger drank
The life-blood from his panting flank,
The father-ruffian of the band
Behind him rears a coward hand!—
O for a moment's aid,
Till Bruce, who deals no double blow,
Dash to the earth another foe,
Above his comrade laid!
And it is gained
the captive sprung On the raised arm and closely clung, And, ere he shook him loose,
The mastered felon pressed the ground, And gasped beneath a mortal wound, While o'er him stands the Bruce.
Yet, ere they left that charnel-cell,
The Island Lord bade sad farewell
To Allan: Who shall tell this tale,'
He said, 'in halls of Donagaile?
O, who his widowed mother tell
That, ere his bloom, her fairest fell?—
Rest thee, poor youth! and trust my care
For mass and knell and funeral prayer;
While o'er those caitiffs where they lie
The wolf shall snarl, the raven cry!'
And now the eastern mountain's head
On the dark lake threw lustre red;
Bright gleams of gold and purple streak
Ravine and precipice and peak-
So earthly power at distance shows;
Reveals his splendor, hides his woes.
O'er sheets of granite, dark and broad,
Rent and unequal, lay the road.
In sad discourse the warriors wind,
And the mute captive moves behind.
Of desert dignity to that dread shore That sees grim Coolin rise and hears Coriskin roar.
Through such wild scenes the champion passed,
When bold halloo and bugle-blast
STRANGER! if e'er thine ardent step Upon the breeze came loud and fast.
And strange and awful fears began to press
Thy bosom with a stern solemnity. Then hast thou wished some woodman's cottage nigh,
Something that showed of life, though low and mean;
Glad sight, its curling wreath of smoke to spy,
Glad sound, its cock's blithe carol would have been,
Or children whooping wild beneath the willows green.
Such are the scenes where savage grandeur wakes
An awful thrill that softens into sighs; 20 Such feelings rouse them by dim Rannoch's lakes,
In dark Glencoe such gloomy raptures rise:
Or farther, where beneath the northern skies
Chides wild Loch- Eribol his caverns hoar
But, be the minstrel judge, they yield the prize
'There,' said the Bruce, 'rung Edward's
What can have caused such brief return?
And see, brave Ronald, see him dart
O'er stock and stone like hunted hart,
Precipitate, as is the use,
In war or sport, of Edward Bruce.
He marks us, and his eager cry
Will tell his news ere he be nigh.'
Loud Edward shouts, What make ye here,
Warring upon the mountain-deer,
When Scotland wants her king?
A bark from Lennox crossed our track,
With her in speed I hurried back,
These joyful news to bring-
The Stuart stirs in Teviotdale,
And Douglas wakes his native vale;
Thy storm-tossed fleet hath won its way
With little loss to Brodick-Bay,
And Lennox with a gallant band
Waits but thy coming and command
To waft them o'er to Carrick strand.
There are blithe news! - but mark the
close!
Edward, the deadliest of our foes,
As with his host he northward passed,
Hath on the borders breathed his last.'
Now, Scotland! shortly shalt thou see, With God's high will, thy children free 60 And vengeance on thy foes!
Yet to no sense of selfish wrongs,
Bear witness with me, Heaven, belongs
My joy o'er Edward's bier;
I took my knighthood at his hand,
And lordship held of him and land,
And well may vouch it here,
That, blot the story from his page
Of Scotland ruined in his rage,
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