The Lay of the Last Minstrel: A Poem, in Six Cantos

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Ginn, 1888 - Scottish poetry - 144 pages

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Page 117 - BREATHES there the man, with soul so dead, Who never to himself hath said, This is my own, my native land? Whose heart hath ne'er within him burned, As home his footsteps he hath turned From wandering on a foreign strand? If such there breathe, go, mark him well...
Page 131 - The blackening wave is edged with white : To inch and rock the sea-mews fly ; The fishers have heard the Water-Sprite, Whose screams forbode that wreck is nigh. " Last night the gifted Seer did view A wet shroud swathed round ladye gay; Then stay thee, Fair, in Ravensheuch : Why cross the gloomy firth to-day...
Page 117 - From wandering on a foreign strand ? If such there breathe, go, mark him well; For him no minstrel raptures swell ; High though his titles, proud his name, Boundless his wealth as wish can claim, — Despite those titles, power, and pelf, The wretch, concentred all in self, Living, shall forfeit fair renown, And, doubly dying, shall go down To the vile dust from whence he sprung, Unwept, unhonored, and unsung.
Page 7 - 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 Who sung of Border chivalry ; For, well-aday!
Page 30 - When the broken arches are black in night, And each shafted oriel glimmers white; When the cold light's uncertain shower Streams on the ruined central tower; When buttress and buttress, alternately, Seem framed of ebon and ivory ; When silver edges the imagery, And the scrolls that teach thee to live and die...
Page 30 - IF thou would'st view fair Melrose aright, Go visit it by the pale moon-light; For the gay beams of lightsome day Gild, but to flout, the ruins gray.
Page 117 - Caledonia! stern and wild, Meet nurse for a poetic child! Land of brown heath and shaggy wood, Land of the mountain and the flood, Land of my sires! what mortal hand Can e'er untie the filial band, That knits me to thy rugged strand!
Page 132 - And glimmered all the dead men's mail. Blazed battlement and pinnet high, Blazed every rose-carved buttress fair — So still they blaze, when fate is nigh The lordly line of high St Clair.
Page 138 - Oh ! on that day, that wrathful day, When man to judgment wakes from clay, Be THOU the trembling sinner's stay, Though heaven and earth shall pass away ! Hushed is the harp — the Minstrel gone.
Page 49 - In peace, Love tunes the shepherd's reed ; In war, he mounts the warrior's steed ; In halls, in gay attire is seen; In hamlets, dances on the green. Love rules the court, the camp, the grove, And men below, and saints above; For love is heaven, and heaven is love.

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