Canto First: The Chase

Harp of the North! that mouldering long hast hungOn the witch-elm that shades Saint Fillan's springAnd down the fitful breeze thy numbers flung,Till envious ivy did around thee cling,Muffling with verdant ringlet every string,--O Minstrel Harp, still must thine accents sleep?Mid rustling leaves and fountains murmuring,Still must thy sweeter sounds their silence keep,Nor bid a warrior smile, nor teach a maid to weep?

Not thus, in ancient days of Caledon,Was thy voice mute amid the festal crowd,When lay of hopeless love, or glory won,Aroused the fearful or subdued the proud.At each according pause was heard aloudThine ardent symphony sublime and high!Fair dames and crested chiefs attention bowed;For still the burden of thy minstrelsyWas Knighthood's dauntless deed, and Beauty's matchless eye.

O, wake once more! how rude soe'er the handThat ventures o'er thy magic maze to stray;O, wake once more! though scarce my skill commandSome feeble echoing of thine earlier lay:Though harsh and faint, and soon to die away,And all unworthy of thy nobler strain,Yet if one heart throb higher at its sway,The wizard note has not been touched in vain.Then silent be no more! Enchantress, wake again!

The stag at eve had drunk his fill,Where danced the moon on Monan's rill,And deep his midnight lair had madeIn lone Glenartney's hazel shade;But when the sun his beacon redHad kindled on Benvoirlich's head,The deep-mouthed bloodhound's heavy bayResounded up the rocky way,And faint, from farther distance borne,Were heard the clanging hoof and horn.

As Chief, who hears his warder call,'To arms! the foemen storm the wall,'The antlered monarch of the wasteSprung from his heathery couch in haste.But ere his fleet career he took,The dew-drops from his flanks he shook;Like crested leader proud and highTossed his beamed frontlet to the sky;A moment gazed adown the dale,A moment snuffed the tainted gale,A moment listened to the cry,That thickened as the chase drew nigh;Then, as the headmost foes appeared,With one brave bound the copse he cleared,And, stretching forward free and far,Sought the wild heaths of Uam-Var.

Yelled on the view the opening pack;Rock, glen, and cavern paid them back;To many a mingled sound at onceThe awakened mountain gave response.A hundred dogs bayed deep and strong,Clattered a hundred steeds along,Their peal the merry horns rung out,A hundred voices joined the shout;With hark and whoop and wild halloo,No rest Benvoirlich's echoes knew.Far from the tumult fled the roe,Close in her covert cowered the doe,The falcon, from her cairn on high,Cast on the rout a wondering eye,Till far beyond her piercing kenThe hurricane had swept the glen.Faint, and more faint, its failing dinReturned from cavern, cliff, and linn,And silence settled, wide and still,On the lone wood and mighty hill.

Less loud the sounds of sylvan warDisturbed the heights of Uam-Var,And roused the cavern where, 't is told,A giant made his den of old;For ere that steep ascent was won,High in his pathway hung the sun,And many a gallant, stayed perforce,Was fain to breathe his faltering horse,And of the trackers of the deerScarce half the lessening pack was near;So shrewdly on the mountain-sideHad the bold burst their mettle tried.

The noble stag was pausing nowUpon the mountain's southern brow,Where broad extended, far beneath,The varied realms of fair Menteith.With anxious eye he wandered o'erMountain and meadow, moss and moor,And pondered refuge from his toil,By far Lochard or Aberfoyle.But nearer was the copsewood grayThat waved and wept on Loch Achray,And mingled with the pine-trees blueOn the bold cliffs of Benvenue.Fresh vigor with the hope returned,With flying foot the heath he spurned,Held westward with unwearied race,And left behind the panting chase.

'T were long to tell what steeds gave o'er,As swept the hunt through Cambusmore;What reins were tightened in despair,When rose Benledi's ridge in air;Who flagged upon Bochastle's heath,Who shunned to stem the flooded Teith,--For twice that day, from shore to shore,The gallant stag swam stoutly o'er.Few were the stragglers, following far,That reached the lake of Vennachar;And when the Brigg of Turk was won,The headmost horseman rode alone.

Alone, but with unbated zeal,That horseman plied the scourge and steel;For jaded now, and spent with toil,Embossed with foam, and dark with soil,While every gasp with sobs he drew,The laboring stag strained full in view.Two dogs of black Saint Hubert's breed,Unmatched for courage, breath, and speed,Fast on his flying traces came,And all but won that desperate game;For, scarce a spear's length from his haunch,Vindictive toiled the bloodhounds stanch;Nor nearer might the dogs attain,Nor farther might the quarry strainThus up the margin of the lake,Between the precipice and brake,O'er stock and rock their race they take.

The Hunter marked that mountain high,The lone lake's western boundary,And deemed the stag must turn to bay,Where that huge rampart barred the way;Already glorying in the prize,Measured his antlers with his eyes;For the death-wound and death-hallooMustered his breath, his whinyard drew:--But thundering as he came prepared,With ready arm and weapon bared,The wily quarry shunned the shock,And turned him from the opposing rock;Then, dashing down a darksome glen,Soon lost to hound and Hunter's ken,In the deep Trosachs' wildest nookHis solitary refuge took.There, while close couched the thicket shedCold dews and wild flowers on his head,He heard the baffled dogs in vainRave through the hollow pass amain,Chiding the rocks that yelled again.

Close on the hounds the Hunter came,To cheer them on the vanished game;But, stumbling in the rugged dell,The gallant horse exhausted fell.The impatient rider strove in vainTo rouse him with the spur and rein,For the good steed, his labors o'er,Stretched his stiff limbs, to rise no more;Then, touched with pity and remorse,He sorrowed o'er the expiring horse.'I little thought, when first thy reinI slacked upon the banks of Seine,That Highland eagle e'er should feedOn thy fleet limbs, my matchless steed!Woe worth the chase, woe worth the day,That costs thy life, my gallant gray!'

Then through the dell his horn resounds,From vain pursuit to call the hounds.Back limped, with slow and crippled pace,The sulky leaders of the chase;Close to their master's side they pressed,With drooping tail and humbled crest;But still the dingle's hollow throatProlonged the swelling bugle-note.The owlets started from their dream,The eagles answered with their scream,Round and around the sounds were cast,Till echo seemed an answering blast;And on the Hunter tried his way,To join some comrades of the day,Yet often paused, so strange the road,So wondrous were the scenes it showed.

The western waves of ebbing dayRolled o'er the glen their level way;Each purple peak, each flinty spire,Was bathed in floods of living fire.But not a setting beam could glowWithin the dark ravines below,Where twined the path in shadow hid,Round many a rocky pyramid,Shooting abruptly from the dellIts thunder-splintered pinnacle;Round many an insulated mass,The native bulwarks of the pass,Huge as the tower which builders vainPresumptuous piled on Shinar's plain.The rocky summits, split and rent,Formed turret, dome, or battlement.Or seemed fantastically setWith cupola or minaret,Wild crests as pagod ever decked,Or mosque of Eastern architect.Nor were these earth-born castles bare,Nor lacked they many a banner fair;For, from their shivered brows displayed,Far o'er the unfathomable glade,All twinkling with the dewdrop sheen,The briar-rose fell in streamers green,kind creeping shrubs of thousand dyesWaved in the west-wind's summer sighs.

Boon nature scattered, free and wild,Each plant or flower, the mountain's child.Here eglantine embalmed the air,Hawthorn and hazel mingled there;The primrose pale and violet flowerFound in each cliff a narrow bower;Foxglove and nightshade, side by side,Emblems of punishment and pride,Grouped their dark hues with every stainThe weather-beaten crags retain.With boughs that quaked at every breath,Gray birch and aspen wept beneath;Aloft, the ash and warrior oakCast anchor in the rifted rock;And, higher yet, the pine-tree hungHis shattered trunk, and frequent flung,Where seemed the cliffs to meet on high,His boughs athwart the narrowed sky.Highest of all, where white peaks glanced,Where glistening streamers waved and danced,The wanderer's eye could barely viewThe summer heaven's delicious blue;So wondrous wild, the whole might seemThe scenery of a fairy dream.

Onward, amid the copse 'gan peepA narrow inlet, still and deep,Affording scarce such breadth of brimAs served the wild duck's brood to swim.Lost for a space, through thickets veering,But broader when again appearing,Tall rocks and tufted knolls their faceCould on the dark-blue mirror trace;And farther as the Hunter strayed,Still broader sweep its channels made.The shaggy mounds no longer stood,Emerging from entangled wood,But, wave-encircled, seemed to float,Like castle girdled with its moat;Yet broader floods extending stillDivide them from their parent hill,Till each, retiring, claims to beAn islet in an inland sea.

And now, to issue from the glen,No pathway meets the wanderer's ken,Unless he climb with footing niceA far-projecting precipice.The broom's tough roots his ladder made,The hazel saplings lent their aid;And thus an airy point he won,Where, gleaming with the setting sun,One burnished sheet of living gold,Loch Katrine lay beneath him rolled,In all her length far winding lay,With promontory, creek, and bay,And islands that, empurpled bright,Floated amid the livelier light,And mountains that like giants standTo sentinel enchanted land.High on the south, huge BenvenueDown to the lake in masses threwCrags, knolls, and mounds, confusedly hurled,The fragments of an earlier world;A wildering forest feathered o'erHis ruined sides and summit hoar,While on the north, through middle air,Ben-an heaved high his forehead bare.

From the steep promontory gazedThe stranger, raptured and amazed,And, 'What a scene were here,' he cried,'For princely pomp or churchman's pride!On this bold brow, a lordly tower;In that soft vale, a lady's bower;On yonder meadow far away,The turrets of a cloister gray;How blithely might the bugle-hornChide on the lake the lingering morn!How sweet at eve the lover's luteChime when the groves were still and mute!And when the midnight moon should laveHer forehead in the silver wave,How solemn on the ear would comeThe holy matins' distant hum,While the deep peal's commanding toneShould wake, in yonder islet lone,A sainted hermit from his cell,To drop a bead with every knell!And bugle, lute, and bell, and all,Should each bewildered stranger callTo friendly feast and lighted hall.

'Blithe were it then to wander here!But now--beshrew yon nimble deer--Like that same hermit's, thin and spare,The copse must give my evening fare;Some mossy bank my couch must be,Some rustling oak my canopy.Yet pass we that; the war and chaseGive little choice of resting-place;--A summer night in greenwood spentWere but to-morrow's merriment:But hosts may in these wilds abound,Such as are better missed than found;To meet with Highland plunderers hereWere worse than loss of steed or deer.--I am alone;--my bugle-strainMay call some straggler of the train;Or, fall the worst that may betide,Ere now this falchion has been tried.'

But scarce again his horn he wound,When lo! forth starting at the sound,From underneath an aged oakThat slanted from the islet rock,A damsel guider of its way,A little skiff shot to the bay,That round the promontory steepLed its deep line in graceful sweep,Eddying, in almost viewless wave,The weeping willow twig to rave,And kiss, with whispering sound and slow,The beach of pebbles bright as snow.The boat had touched this silver strandJust as the Hunter left his stand,And stood concealed amid the brake,To view this Lady of the Lake.The maiden paused, as if againShe thought to catch the distant strain.With head upraised, and look intent,And eye and ear attentive bent,And locks flung back, and lips apart,Like monument of Grecian art,In listening mood, she seemed to stand,The guardian Naiad of the strand.

And ne'er did Grecian chisel traceA Nymph, a Naiad, or a Grace,Of finer form or lovelier face!What though the sun, with ardent frown,Had slightly tinged her cheek with brown,--The sportive toil, which, short and lightHad dyed her glowing hue so bright,Served too in hastier swell to showShort glimpses of a breast of snow:What though no rule of courtly graceTo measured mood had trained her pace,--A foot more light, a step more true,Ne'er from the heath-flower dashed the dew;E'en the slight harebell raised its head,Elastic from her airy tread:What though upon her speech there hungThe accents of the mountain tongue,---Those silver sounds, so soft, so dear,The listener held his breath to hear!

A chieftain's daughter seemed the maid;Her satin snood, her silken plaid,Her golden brooch, such birth betrayed.And seldom was a snood amidSuch wild luxuriant ringlets hid,Whose glossy black to shame might bringThe plumage of the raven's wing;And seldom o'er a breast so fairMantled a plaid with modest care,And never brooch the folds combinedAbove a heart more good and kind.Her kindness and her worth to spy,You need but gaze on Ellen's eye;Not Katrine in her mirror blueGives back the shaggy banks more true,Than every free-born glance confessedThe guileless movements of her breast;Whether joy danced in her dark eye,Or woe or pity claimed a sigh,Or filial love was glowing there,Or meek devotion poured a prayer,Or tale of injury called forthThe indignant spirit of the North.One only passion unrevealedWith maiden pride the maid concealed,Yet not less purely felt the flame;--O, need I tell that passion's name?

Impatient of the silent horn,Now on the gale her voice was borne:--'Father!' she cried; the rocks aroundLoved to prolong the gentle sound.Awhile she paused, no answer came;--'Malcolm, was thine the blast?' the nameLess resolutely uttered fell,The echoes could not catch the swell.'A stranger I,' the Huntsman said,Advancing from the hazel shade.The maid, alarmed, with hasty oarPushed her light shallop from the shore,And when a space was gained between,Closer she drew her bosom's screen;--So forth the startled swan would swing,So turn to prune his ruffled wing.Then safe, though fluttered and amazed,She paused, and on the stranger gazed.Not his the form, nor his the eye,That youthful maidens wont to fly.

On his bold visage middle ageHad slightly pressed its signet sage,Yet had not quenched the open truthAnd fiery vehemence of youth;Forward and frolic glee was there,The will to do, the soul to dare,The sparkling glance, soon blown to fire,Of hasty love or headlong ire.His limbs were cast in manly couldFor hardy sports or contest bold;And though in peaceful garb arrayed,And weaponless except his blade,His stately mien as well impliedA high-born heart, a martial pride,As if a baron's crest he wore,And sheathed in armor bode the shore.Slighting the petty need he showed,He told of his benighted road;His ready speech flowed fair and free,In phrase of gentlest courtesy,Yet seemed that tone and gesture blandLess used to sue than to command.

Awhile the maid the stranger eyed,And, reassured, at length replied,That Highland halls were open stillTo wildered wanderers of the hill.'Nor think you unexpected comeTo yon lone isle, our desert home;Before the heath had lost the dew,This morn, a couch was pulled for you;On yonder mountain's purple headHave ptarmigan and heath-cock bled,And our broad nets have swept the mere,To furnish forth your evening cheer.'--'Now, by the rood, my lovely maid,Your courtesy has erred,' he said;'No right have I to claim, misplaced,The welcome of expected guest.A wanderer, here by fortune toss,My way, my friends, my courser lost,I ne'er before, believe me, fair,Have ever drawn your mountain air,Till on this lake's romantic strandI found a fey in fairy land!'--

'I well believe,' the maid replied,As her light skiff approached the side,--'I well believe, that ne'er beforeYour foot has trod Loch Katrine's shoreBut yet, as far as yesternight,Old Allan-bane foretold your plight,--A gray-haired sire, whose eye intentWas on the visioned future bent.He saw your steed, a dappled gray,Lie dead beneath the birchen way;Painted exact your form and mien,Your hunting-suit of Lincoln green,That tasselled horn so gayly gilt,That falchion's crooked blade and hilt,That cap with heron plumage trim,And yon two hounds so dark and grim.He bade that all should ready beTo grace a guest of fair degree;But light I held his prophecy,And deemed it was my father's hornWhose echoes o'er the lake were borne.'

The stranger smiled:--'Since to your homeA destined errant-knight I come,Announced by prophet sooth and old,Doomed, doubtless, for achievement bold,I 'll lightly front each high empriseFor one kind glance of those bright eyes.Permit me first the task to guideYour fairy frigate o'er the tide.'The maid, with smile suppressed and sly,The toil unwonted saw him try;For seldom, sure, if e'er before,His noble hand had grasped an oar:Yet with main strength his strokes he drew,And o'er the lake the shallop flew;With heads erect and whimpering cry,The hounds behind their passage ply.Nor frequent does the bright oar breakThe darkening mirror of the lake,Until the rocky isle they reach,And moor their shallop on the beach.

The stranger viewed the shore around;'T was all so close with copsewood bound,Nor track nor pathway might declareThat human foot frequented there,Until the mountain maiden showedA clambering unsuspected road,That winded through the tangled screen,And opened on a narrow green,Where weeping birch and willow roundWith their long fibres swept the ground.Here, for retreat in dangerous hour,Some chief had framed a rustic bower.

It was a lodge of ample size,But strange of structure and device;Of such materials as aroundThe workman's hand had readiest found.Lopped of their boughs, their hoar trunks bared,And by the hatchet rudely squared,To give the walls their destined height,The sturdy oak and ash unite;While moss and clay and leaves combinedTo fence each crevice from the wind.The lighter pine-trees overheadTheir slender length for rafters spread,And withered heath and rushes drySupplied a russet canopy.Due westward, fronting to the green,A rural portico was seen,Aloft on native pillars borne,Of mountain fir with bark unshornWhere Ellen's hand had taught to twineThe ivy and Idaean vine,The clematis, the favored flowerWhich boasts the name of virgin-bower,And every hardy plant could bearLoch Katrine's keen and searching air.An instant in this porch she stayed,And gayly to the stranger said:'On heaven and on thy lady call,And enter the enchanted hall!'

'My hope, my heaven, my trust must be,My gentle guide, in following thee!'--He crossed the threshold,--and a clangOf angry steel that instant rang.To his bold brow his spirit rushed,But soon for vain alarm he blushedWhen on the floor he saw displayed,Cause of the din, a naked bladeDropped from the sheath, that careless flungUpon a stag's huge antlers swung;For all around, the walls to grace,Hung trophies of the fight or chase:A target there, a bugle here,A battle-axe, a hunting-spear,And broadswords, bows, and arrows store,With the tusked trophies of the boar.Here grins the wolf as when he died,And there the wild-cat's brindled hideThe frontlet of the elk adorns,Or mantles o'er the bison's horns;Pennons and flags defaced and stained,That blackening streaks of blood retained,And deer-skins, dappled, dun, and white,With otter's fur and seal's unite,In rude and uncouth tapestry all,To garnish forth the sylvan hall.

The wondering stranger round him gazed,And next the fallen weapon raised:--Few were the arms whose sinewy strengthSufficed to stretch it forth at length.And as the brand he poised and swayed,'I never knew but one,' he said,'Whose stalwart arm might brook to wieldA blade like this in battle-field.'She sighed, then smiled and took the word:'You see the guardian champion's sword;As light it trembles in his handAs in my grasp a hazel wand:My sire's tall form might grace the partOf Ferragus or Ascabart,But in the absent giant's holdAre women now, and menials old.'

The mistress of the mansion came,Mature of age, a graceful dame,Whose easy step and stately portHad well become a princely court,To whom, though more than kindred knew,Young Ellen gave a mother's due.Meet welcome to her guest she made,And every courteous rite was paidThat hospitality could claim,Though all unasked his birth and name.Such then the reverence to a guest,That fellest foe might join the feast,And from his deadliest foeman's doorUnquestioned turn the banquet o'erAt length his rank the stranger names,'The Knight of Snowdoun, James Fitz-James;Lord of a barren heritage,Which his brave sires, from age to age,By their good swords had held with toil;His sire had fallen in such turmoil,And he, God wot, was forced to standOft for his right with blade in hand.This morning with Lord Moray's trainHe chased a stalwart stag in vain,Outstripped his comrades, missed the deer,Lost his good steed, and wandered here.'

Fain would the Knight in turn requireThe name and state of Ellen's sire.Well showed the elder lady's mienThat courts and cities she had seen;Ellen, though more her looks displayedThe simple grace of sylvan maid,In speech and gesture, form and face,Showed she was come of gentle race.'T were strange in ruder rank to findSuch looks, such manners, and such mind.Each hint the Knight of Snowdoun gave,Dame Margaret heard with silence grave;Or Ellen, innocently gay,Turned all inquiry light away:--'Weird women we! by dale and downWe dwell, afar from tower and town.We stem the flood, we ride the blast,On wandering knights our spells we cast;While viewless minstrels touch the string,'Tis thus our charmed rhymes we sing.'She sung, and still a harp unseenFilled up the symphony between.

Soldier, rest! thy warfare o'er,Sleep the sleep that knows not breaking;Dream of battled fields no more,Days of danger, nights of waking.In our isle's enchanted hall,Hands unseen thy couch are strewing,Fairy strains of music fall,Every sense in slumber dewing.Soldier, rest! thy warfare o'er,Dream of fighting fields no more;Sleep the sleep that knows not breaking,Morn of toil, nor night of waking.

'No rude sound shall reach thine ear,Armor's clang or war-steed champingTrump nor pibroch summon hereMustering clan or squadron tramping.Yet the lark's shrill fife may comeAt the daybreak from the fallow,And the bittern sound his drumBooming from the sedgy shallow.Ruder sounds shall none be near,Guards nor warders challenge here,Here's no war-steed's neigh and champing,Shouting clans or squadrons stamping.'

She paused,--then, blushing, led the lay,To grace the stranger of the day.Her mellow notes awhile prolongThe cadence of the flowing song,Till to her lips in measured frameThe minstrel verse spontaneous came.

Not faster o'er thy heathery braesBalquidder, speeds the midnight blaze,Rushing in conflagration strongThy deep ravines and dells along,Wrapping thy cliffs in purple glow,And reddening the dark lakes below;Nor faster speeds it, nor so far,As o'er thy heaths the voice of war.The signal roused to martial coilThe sullen margin of Loch Voil,Waked still Loch Doine, and to the sourceAlarmed, Balvaig, thy swampy course;Thence southward turned its rapid roadAdown Strath-Gartney's valley broadTill rose in arms each man might claimA portion in Clan-Alpine's name,From the gray sire, whose trembling handCould hardly buckle on his brand,To the raw boy, whose shaft and bowWere yet scarce terror to the crow.Each valley, each sequestered glen,Mustered its little horde of menThat met as torrents from the heightIn Highland dales their streams uniteStill gathering, as they pour along,A voice more loud, a tide more strong,Till at the rendezvous they stoodBy hundreds prompt for blows and blood,Each trained to arms since life began,Owning no tie but to his clan,No oath but by his chieftain's hand,No law but Roderick Dhu's command.

That summer morn had Roderick DhuSurveyed the skirts of Benvenue,And sent his scouts o'er hill and heath,To view the frontiers of Menteith.All backward came with news of truce;Still lay each martial Graeme and Bruce,In Rednock courts no horsemen wait,No banner waved on Cardross gate,On Duchray's towers no beacon shone,Nor scared the herons from Loch Con;All seemed at peace.--Now wot ye wilyThe Chieftain with such anxious eye,Ere to the muster he repair,This western frontier scanned with care?--In Benvenue's most darksome cleft,A fair though cruel pledge was left;For Douglas, to his promise true,That morning from the isle withdrew,And in a deep sequestered dellHad sought a low and lonely cell.By many a bard in Celtic tongueHas Coir-nan-Uriskin been sungA softer name the Saxons gave,And called the grot the Goblin Cave.

It was a wild and strange retreat,As e'er was trod by outlaw's feet.The dell, upon the mountain's crest,Yawned like a gash on warrior's breast;Its trench had stayed full many a rock,Hurled by primeval earthquake shockFrom Benvenue's gray summit wild,And here, in random ruin piled,They frowned incumbent o'er the spotAnd formed the rugged sylvan "rot.The oak and birch with mingled shadeAt noontide there a twilight made,Unless when short and sudden shoneSome straggling beam on cliff or stone,With such a glimpse as prophet's eyeGains on thy depth, Futurity.No murmur waked the solemn still,Save tinkling of a fountain rill;But when the wind chafed with the lake,A sullen sound would upward break,With dashing hollow voice, that spokeThe incessant war of wave and rock.Suspended cliffs with hideous swaySeemed nodding o'er the cavern gray.From such a den the wolf had sprung,In such the wild-cat leaves her young;Yet Douglas and his daughter fairSought for a space their safety there.Gray Superstition's whisper dreadDebarred the spot to vulgar tread;For there, she said, did fays resort,And satyrs hold their sylvan court,By moonlight tread their mystic maze,And blast the rash beholder's gaze.

Now eve, with western shadows long,Floated on Katrine bright and strong,When Roderick with a chosen fewRepassed the heights of Benvenue.Above the Goblin Cave they go,Through the wild pass of Beal-nam-bo;The prompt retainers speed before,To launch the shallop from the shore,For 'cross Loch Katrine lies his wayTo view the passes of Achray,And place his clansmen in array.Yet lags the Chief in musing mind,Unwonted sight, his men behind.A single page, to bear his sword,Alone attended on his lord;The rest their way through thickets break,And soon await him by the lake.It was a fair and gallant sightTo view them from the neighboring height,By the low-levelled sunbeam's light!For strength and stature, from the clanEach warrior was a chosen man,As even afar might well be seen,By their proud step and martial mien.Their feathers dance, their tartars float,Their targets gleam, as by the boatA wild and warlike group they stand,That well became such mountain-strand.

Their Chief with step reluctant stillWas lingering on the craggy hill,Hard by where turned apart the roadTo Douglas's obscure abode.It was but with that dawning mornThat Roderick Dhu had proudly swornTo drown his love in war's wild roar,Nor think of Ellen Douglas more;But he who stems a stream with sand,And fetters flame with flaxen band,Has yet a harder task to prove,--By firm resolve to conquer love!Eve finds the Chief, like restless ghost,Still hovering near his treasure lost;For though his haughty heart denyA parting meeting to his eyeStill fondly strains his anxious earThe accents of her voice to hear,And inly did he curse the breezeThat waked to sound the rustling trees.But hark! what mingles in the strain?It is the harp of Allan-bane,That wakes its measure slow and high,Attuned to sacred minstrelsy.What melting voice attends the strings?'Tis Ellen, or an angel, sings.

'Who is this maid? what means her lay?She hovers o'er the hollow way,And flutters wide her mantle gray,As the lone heron spreads his wing,By twilight, o'er a haunted spring.'''Tis Blanche of Devan,' Murdoch said,'A crazed and captive Lowland maid,Ta'en on the morn she was a bride,When Roderick forayed Devan-side.The gay bridegroom resistance made,And felt our Chief's unconquered blade.I marvel she is now at large,But oft she 'scapes from Maudlin's charge.--Hence, brain-sick fool!'--He raised his bow:--'Now, if thou strik'st her but one blow,I'll pitch thee from the cliff as farAs ever peasant pitched a bar!''Thanks, champion, thanks' the Maniac cried,And pressed her to Fitz-James's side.'See the gray pennons I prepare,To seek my true love through the air!I will not lend that savage groom,To break his fall, one downy plume!No!--deep amid disjointed stones,The wolves shall batten on his bones,And then shall his detested plaid,By bush and brier in mid-air stayed,Wave forth a banner fail and free,Meet signal for their revelry.'

'Hush thee, poor maiden, and be still!''O! thou look'st kindly, and I will.Mine eye has dried and wasted been,But still it loves the Lincoln green;And, though mine ear is all unstrung,Still, still it loves the Lowland tongue.

'For O my sweet William was forester true,He stole poor Blanche's heart away!His coat it was all of the greenwood hue,And so blithely he trilled the Lowland lay!

'It was not that I meant to tell...But thou art wise and guessest well.'Then, in a low and broken tone,And hurried note, the song went on.Still on the Clansman fearfullyShe fixed her apprehensive eye,Then turned it on the Knight, and thenHer look glanced wildly o'er the glen.

'The toils are pitched, and the stakes are set,--Ever sing merrily, merrily;The bows they bend, and the knives they whet,Hunters live so cheerily.

It was a stag, a stag of ten,Bearing its branches sturdily;He came stately down the glen,--Ever sing hardily, hardily.

'It was there he met with a wounded doe,She was bleeding deathfully;She warned him of the toils below,O. so faithfully, faithfully!

'He had an eye, and he could heed,--Ever sing warily, warily;He had a foot, and he could speed,--Hunters watch so narrowly.'

Fitz-James's mind was passion-tossed,When Ellen's hints and fears were lost;But Murdoch's shout suspicion wrought,And Blanche's song conviction brought.Not like a stag that spies the snare,But lion of the hunt aware,He waved at once his blade on high,'Disclose thy treachery, or die!'Forth at hell speed the Clansman flew,But in his race his bow he drew.The shaft just grazed Fitz-James's crest,And thrilled in Blanche's faded breast.--Murdoch of Alpine! prove thy speed,For ne'er had Alpine's son such need;With heart of fire, and foot of wind,The fierce avenger is behind!Fate judges of the rapid strife--The forfeit death--the prize is life;Thy kindred ambush lies before,Close couched upon the heathery moor;Them couldst thou reach!--it may not beThine ambushed kin thou ne'er shalt see,The fiery Saxon gains on thee!--Resistless speeds the deadly thrust,As lightning strikes the pine to dust;With foot and hand Fitz-James must strainEre he can win his blade again.Bent o'er the fallen with falcon eye,He grimly smiled to see him die,Then slower wended back his way,Where the poor maiden bleeding lay.

She sat beneath the birchen tree,Her elbow resting on her knee;She had withdrawn the fatal shaft,And gazed on it, and feebly laughed;Her wreath of broom and feathers gray,Daggled with blood, beside her lay.The Knight to stanch the life-stream tried,--'Stranger, it is in vain!' she cried.'This hour of death has given me moreOf reason's power than years before;For, as these ebbing veins decay,My frenzied visions fade away.A helpless injured wretch I die,And something tells me in thine eyeThat thou wert mine avenger born.Seest thou this tress?--O. still I 've wornThis little tress of yellow hair,Through danger, frenzy, and despair!It once was bright and clear as thine,But blood and tears have dimmed its shine.I will not tell thee when 't was shred,Nor from what guiltless victim's head,--My brain would turn!--but it shall waveLike plumage on thy helmet brave,Till sun and wind shall bleach the stain,And thou wilt bring it me again.I waver still.--O God! more brightLet reason beam her parting light!--O. by thy knighthood's honored sign,And for thy life preserved by mine,When thou shalt see a darksome man,Who boasts him Chief of Alpine's Clan,With tartars broad and shadowy plume,And hand of blood, and brow of gloomBe thy heart bold, thy weapon strong,And wreak poor Blanche of Devan's wrong!--They watch for thee by pass and fell...Avoid the path... O God!... farewell.'

A kindly heart had brave Fitz-James;Fast poured his eyes at pity's claims;And now, with mingled grief and ire,He saw the murdered maid expire.'God, in my need, be my relief,As I wreak this on yonder Chief!'A lock from Blanche's tresses fairHe blended with her bridegroom's hair;The mingled braid in blood he dyed,And placed it on his bonnet-side:'By Him whose word is truth, I swear,No other favour will I wear,Till this sad token I imbrueIn the best blood of Roderick Dhu!--But hark! what means yon faint halloo?The chase is up,--but they shall know,The stag at bay 's a dangerous foe.'Barred from the known but guarded way,Through copse and cliffs Fitz-James must stray,And oft must change his desperate track,By stream and precipice turned back.Heartless, fatigued, and faint, at length,From lack of food and loss of strengthHe couched him in a thicket hoarAnd thought his toils and perils o'er:--'Of all my rash adventures past,This frantic feat must prove the last!Who e'er so mad but might have guessedThat all this Highland hornet's nestWould muster up in swarms so soonAs e'er they heard of bands at Doune?--Like bloodhounds now they search me out,--Hark, to the whistle and the shout!--If farther through the wilds I go,I only fall upon the foe:I'll couch me here till evening gray,Then darkling try my dangerous way.'

The shades of eve come slowly down,The woods are wrapt in deeper brown,The owl awakens from her dell,The fox is heard upon the fell;Enough remains of glimmering lightTo guide the wanderer's steps aright,Yet not enough from far to showHis figure to the watchful foe.With cautious step and ear awake,He climbs the crag and threads the brake;And not the summer solstice thereTempered the midnight mountain air,But every breeze that swept the woldBenumbed his drenched limbs with cold.In dread, in danger, and alone,Famished and chilled, through ways unknown,Tangled and steep, he journeyed on;Till, as a rock's huge point he turned,A watch-fire close before him burned.

Beside its embers red and clearBasked in his plaid a mountaineer;And up he sprung with sword in hand,--'Thy name and purpose! Saxon, stand!''A stranger.' 'What dost thou require?''Rest and a guide, and food and fireMy life's beset, my path is lost,The gale has chilled my limbs with frost.''Art thou a friend to Roderick?' 'No.''Thou dar'st not call thyself a foe?''I dare! to him and all the bandHe brings to aid his murderous hand.''Bold words!--but, though the beast of gameThe privilege of chase may claim,Though space and law the stag we lendEre hound we slip or bow we bendWho ever recked, where, how, or when,The prowling fox was trapped or slain?Thus treacherous scouts,--yet sure they lieWho say thou cam'st a secret spy!'--'They do, by heaven!--come Roderick DhuAnd of his clan the boldest twoAnd let me but till morning rest,I write the falsehood on their crest.'If by the blaze I mark arightThou bear'st the belt and spur of Knight.''Then by these tokens mayst thou knowEach proud oppressor's mortal foe.''Enough, enough; sit down and shareA soldier's couch, a soldier's fare.'

He gave him of his Highland cheer,The hardened flesh of mountain deer;Dry fuel on the fire he laid,And bade the Saxon share his plaid.He tended him like welcome guest,Then thus his further speech addressed:--'Stranger, I am to Roderick DhuA clansman born, a kinsman true;Each word against his honour spokeDemands of me avenging stroke;Yet more,--upon thy fate, 'tis said,A mighty augury is laid.It rests with me to wind my horn,--Thou art with numbers overborne;It rests with me, here, brand to brand,Worn as thou art, to bid thee stand:But, not for clan, nor kindred's cause,Will I depart from honour's laws;To assail a wearied man were shame,And stranger is a holy name;Guidance and rest, and food and fire,In vain he never must require.Then rest thee here till dawn of day;Myself will guide thee on the way,O'er stock and stone, through watch and ward,Till past Clan-Alpine's outmost guard,As far as Coilantogle's ford;From thence thy warrant is thy sword.''I take thy courtesy, by heaven,As freely as 'tis nobly given!'Well, rest thee; for the bittern's crySings us the lake's wild lullaby.'With that he shook the gathered heath,And spread his plaid upon the wreath;And the brave foemen, side by side,Lay peaceful down like brothers tried,And slept until the dawning beamPurpled the mountain and the stream.

'Huntsman, rest! thy chase is done;While our slumbrous spells assail ye,Dream not, with the rising sun,Bugles here shall sound reveille.Sleep! the deer is in his den;Sleep! thy hounds are by thee lying;Sleep! nor dream in yonder glenHow thy gallant steed lay dying.Huntsman, rest! thy chase is done;Think not of the rising sun,For at dawning to assail yeHere no bugles sound reveille.'

The hall was cleared,--the stranger's bed,Was there of mountain heather spread,Where oft a hundred guests had lain,And dreamed their forest sports again.But vainly did the heath-flower shedIts moorland fragrance round his head;Not Ellen's spell had lulled to restThe fever of his troubled breast.In broken dreams the image roseOf varied perils, pains, and woes:His steed now flounders in the brake,Now sinks his barge upon the lake;Now leader of a broken host,His standard falls, his honor's lost.Then,--from my couch may heavenly mightChase that worst phantom of the night!--Again returned the scenes of youth,Of confident, undoubting truth;Again his soul he interchangedWith friends whose hearts were long estranged.They come, in dim procession led,The cold, the faithless, and the dead;As warm each hand, each brow as gay,As if they parted yesterday.And doubt distracts him at the view,--O were his senses false or true?Dreamed he of death or broken vow,Or is it all a vision now?

At length, with Ellen in a groveHe seemed to walk and speak of love;She listened with a blush and sigh,His suit was warm, his hopes were high.He sought her yielded hand to clasp,And a cold gauntlet met his grasp:The phantom's sex was changed and gone,Upon its head a helmet shone;Slowly enlarged to giant size,With darkened cheek and threatening eyes,The grisly visage, stern and hoar,To Ellen still a likeness bore.--He woke, and, panting with affright,Recalled the vision of the night.The hearth's decaying brands were redAnd deep and dusky lustre shed,Half showing, half concealing, allThe uncouth trophies of the hall.Mid those the stranger fixed his eyeWhere that huge falchion hung on high,And thoughts on thoughts, a countless throng,Rushed, chasing countless thoughts along,Until, the giddy whirl to cure,He rose and sought the moonshine pure.

The wild rose, eglantine, and broomWasted around their rich perfume;The birch-trees wept in fragrant balm;The aspens slept beneath the calm;The silver light, with quivering glance,Played on the water's still expanse,--Wild were the heart whose passion's swayCould rage beneath the sober ray!He felt its calm, that warrior guest,While thus he communed with his breast:--'Why is it, at each turn I traceSome memory of that exiled race?Can I not mountain maiden spy,But she must bear the Douglas eye?Can I not view a Highland brand,But it must match the Douglas hand?Can I not frame a fevered dream,But still the Douglas is the theme?I'll dream no more,--by manly mindNot even in sleep is will resigned.My midnight orisons said o'er,I'll turn to rest, and dream no more.'His midnight orisons he told,A prayer with every bead of gold,Consigned to heaven his cares and woes,And sunk in undisturbed repose,Until the heath-cock shrilly crew,And morning dawned on Benvenue.

As died the sounds upon the tide,The shallop reached the mainland side,And ere his onward way he took,The stranger cast a lingering look,Where easily his eye might reachThe Harper on the islet beach,Reclined against a blighted tree,As wasted, gray, and worn as he.To minstrel meditation given,His reverend brow was raised to heaven,As from the rising sun to claimA sparkle of inspiring flame.His hand, reclined upon the wire,Seemed watching the awakening fire;So still he sat as those who waitTill judgment speak the doom of fate;So still, as if no breeze might dareTo lift one lock of hoary hair;So still, as life itself were fledIn the last sound his harp had sped.

Upon a rock with lichens wild,Beside him Ellen sat and smiled.--Smiled she to see the stately drakeLead forth his fleet upon the lake,While her vexed spaniel from the beachBayed at the prize beyond his reach?Yet tell me, then, the maid who knows,Why deepened on her cheek the rose?--Forgive, forgive, Fidelity!Perchance the maiden smiled to seeYon parting lingerer wave adieu,And stop and turn to wave anew;And, lovely ladies, ere your ireCondemn the heroine of my lyre,Show me the fair would scorn to spyAnd prize such conquest of her eve!

While yet he loitered on the spot,It seemed as Ellen marked him not;But when he turned him to the glade,One courteous parting sign she made;And after, oft the knight would say,That not when prize of festal dayWas dealt him by the brightest fairWho e'er wore jewel in her hair,So highly did his bosom swellAs at that simple mute farewell.Now with a trusty mountain-guide,And his dark stag-hounds by his side,He parts,--the maid, unconscious still,Watched him wind slowly round the hill;But when his stately form was hid,The guardian in her bosom chid,--'Thy Malcolm! vain and selfish maid!''T was thus upbraiding conscience said,--'Not so had Malcolm idly hungOn the smooth phrase of Southern tongue;Not so had Malcolm strained his eyeAnother step than thine to spy.'--'Wake, Allan-bane,' aloud she criedTo the old minstrel by her side,--'Arouse thee from thy moody dream!I 'll give thy harp heroic theme,And warm thee with a noble name;Pour forth the glory of the Graeme!'Scarce from her lip the word had rushed,When deep the conscious maiden blushed;For of his clan, in hall and bower,Young Malcolm Graeme was held the flower.

The minstrel waked his harp,--three timesArose the well-known martial chimes,And thrice their high heroic prideIn melancholy murmurs died.'Vainly thou bidst, O noble maid,'Clasping his withered hands, he said,'Vainly thou bidst me wake the strain,Though all unwont to bid in vain.Alas! than mine a mightier handHas tuned my harp, my strings has spanned!I touch the chords of joy, but lowAnd mournful answer notes of woe;And the proud march which victors treadSinks in the wailing for the dead.O, well for me, if mine aloneThat dirge's deep prophetic tone!If, as my tuneful fathers said,This harp, which erst Saint Modan swayed,Can thus its master's fate foretell,Then welcome be the minstrel's knell.'

'But ah! dear lady, thus it sighed,The eve thy sainted mother died;And such the sounds which, while I stroveTo wake a lay of war or love,Came marring all the festal mirth,Appalling me who gave them birth,And, disobedient to my call,Wailed loud through Bothwell's bannered hall.Ere Douglases, to ruin driven,Were exiled from their native heaven.--O! if yet worse mishap and woeMy master's house must undergo,Or aught but weal to Ellen fairBrood in these accents of despair,No future bard, sad Harp! shall flingTriumph or rapture from thy string;One short, one final strain shall flow,Fraught with unutterable woe,Then shivered shall thy fragments lie,Thy master cast him down and die!'

Soothing she answered him: 'Assuage,Mine honored friend, the fears of age;All melodies to thee are knownThat harp has rung or pipe has blown,In Lowland vale or Highland glen,From Tweed to Spey--what marvel, then,At times unbidden notes should rise,Confusedly bound in memory's ties,Entangling, as they rush along,The war-march with the funeral song?--Small ground is now for boding fear;Obscure, but safe, we rest us here.My sire, in native virtue great,Resigning lordship, lands, and state,Not then to fortune more resignedThan yonder oak might give the wind;The graceful foliage storms may reeve,'Fine noble stem they cannot grieve.For me'--she stooped, and, looking round,Plucked a blue harebell from the ground,--'For me, whose memory scarce conveysAn image of more splendid days,This little flower that loves the leaMay well my simple emblem be;It drinks heaven's dew as blithe as roseThat in the King's own garden grows;And when I place it in my hair,Allan, a bard is bound to swearHe ne'er saw coronet so fair.'Then playfully the chaplet wildShe wreathed in her dark locks, and smiled.

Her smile, her speech, with winning swayWiled the old Harper's mood away.With such a look as hermits throw,When angels stoop to soothe their woeHe gazed, till fond regret and prideThrilled to a tear, then thus replied:'Loveliest and best! thou little know'stThe rank, the honors, thou hast lost!O. might I live to see thee grace,In Scotland's court, thy birthright place,To see my favorite's step advanceThe lightest in the courtly dance,The cause of every gallant's sigh,And leading star of every eye,And theme of every minstrel's art,The Lady of the Bleeding Heart!'

'Fair dreams are these,' the maiden cried,--Light was her accent, yet she sighed,--'Yet is this mossy rock to meWorth splendid chair and canopy;Nor would my footstep spring more gayIn courtly dance than blithe strathspey,Nor half so pleased mine ear inclineTo royal minstrel's lay as thine.And then for suitors proud and high,To bend before my conquering eye,--Thou, flattering bard! thyself wilt say,That grim Sir Roderick owns its sway.The Saxon scourge, Clan-Alpine's pride,The terror of Loch Lomond's side,Would, at my suit, thou know'st, delayA Lennox foray--for a day.'--

The ancient bard her glee repressed:'Ill hast thou chosen theme for jest!For who, through all this western wild,Named Black Sir Roderick e'er, and smiled?In Holy-Rood a knight he slew;I saw, when back the dirk he drew,Courtiers give place before the strideOf the undaunted homicide;And since, though outlawed, hath his handFull sternly kept his mountain land.

Who else dared give--ah! woe the day,That I such hated truth should say!--The Douglas, like a stricken deer,Disowned by every noble peer,Even the rude refuge we have here?Alas, this wild maraudingChief Alone might hazard our relief,And now thy maiden charms expand,Looks for his guerdon in thy hand;Full soon may dispensation sought,To back his suit, from Rome be brought.Then, though an exile on the hill,Thy father, as the Douglas, stillBe held in reverence and fear;And though to Roderick thou'rt so dearThat thou mightst guide with silken thread.Slave of thy will, this chieftain dread,Yet, O loved maid, thy mirth refrain!Thy hand is on a lion's mane.'--

Minstrel,' the maid replied, and highHer father's soul glanced from her eye,'My debts to Roderick's house I know:All that a mother could bestowTo Lady Margaret's care I owe,Since first an orphan in the wildShe sorrowed o'er her sister's child;To her brave chieftain son, from ireOf Scotland's king who shrouds my sire,A deeper, holier debt is owed;And, could I pay it with my blood, Allan!Sir Roderick should commandMy blood, my life,--but not my hand.Rather will Ellen Douglas dwellA votaress in Maronnan's cell;Rather through realms beyond the sea,Seeking the world's cold charityWhere ne'er was spoke a Scottish word,And ne'er the name of Douglas heardAn outcast pilgrim will she rove,Than wed the man she cannot love.

'Thou shak'st, good friend, thy tresses gray,--That pleading look, what can it sayBut what I own?--I grant him brave,But wild as Bracklinn's thundering wave;And generous,--save vindictive moodOr jealous transport chafe his blood:I grant him true to friendly band,As his claymore is to his hand;But O! that very blade of steelMore mercy for a foe would feel:I grant him liberal, to flingAmong his clan the wealth they bring,When back by lake and glen they wind,And in the Lowland leave behind,Where once some pleasant hamlet stood,A mass of ashes slaked with blood.The hand that for my father foughtI honor, as his daughter ought;But can I clasp it reeking redFrom peasants slaughtered in their shed?No! wildly while his virtues gleam,They make his passions darker seem,And flash along his spirit high,Like lightning o'er the midnight sky.While yet a child,--and children know,Instinctive taught, the friend and foe,--I shuddered at his brow of gloom,His shadowy plaid and sable plume;A maiden grown, I ill could bearHis haughty mien and lordly air:But, if thou join'st a suitor's claim,In serious mood, to Roderick's name.I thrill with anguish! or, if e'erA Douglas knew the word, with fear.To change such odious theme were best,--What think'st thou of our stranger guest? '--

'What think I of him?--woe the whileThat brought such wanderer to our isle!Thy father's battle-brand, of yoreFor Tine-man forged by fairy lore,What time he leagued, no longer foesHis Border spears with Hotspur's bows,Did, self-unscabbarded, foreshowThe footstep of a secret foe.If courtly spy hath harbored here,What may we for the Douglas fear?What for this island, deemed of oldClan-Alpine's last and surest hold?If neither spy nor foe, I prayWhat yet may jealous Roderick say?--Nay, wave not thy disdainful head!Bethink thee of the discord dreadThat kindled when at Beltane gameThou least the dance with Malcolm Graeme;Still, though thy sire the peace renewedSmoulders in Roderick's breast the feud:Beware!--But hark! what sounds are these?My dull ears catch no faltering breezeNo weeping birch nor aspens wake,Nor breath is dimpling in the lake;Still is the canna's hoary beard,Yet, by my minstrel faith, I heard--And hark again! some pipe of warSends the hold pibroch from afar.'

Far up the lengthened lake were spiedFour darkening specks upon the tide,That, slow enlarging on the view,Four manned and massed barges grew,And, bearing downwards from Glengyle,Steered full upon the lonely isle;The point of Brianchoil they passed,And, to the windward as they cast,Against the sun they gave to shineThe bold Sir Roderick's bannered Pine.Nearer and nearer as they bear,Spears, pikes, and axes flash in air.Now might you see the tartars brave,And plaids and plumage dance and wave:Now see the bonnets sink and rise,As his tough oar the rower plies;See, flashing at each sturdy stroke,The wave ascending into smoke;See the proud pipers on the bow,And mark the gaudy streamers flowFrom their loud chanters down, and sweepThe furrowed bosom of the deep,As, rushing through the lake amain,They plied the ancient Highland strain.

Ever, as on they bore, more loudAnd louder rung the pibroch proud.At first the sounds, by distance tame,Mellowed along the waters came,And, lingering long by cape and bay,Wailed every harsher note away,Then bursting bolder on the ear,The clan's shrill Gathering they could hear,Those thrilling sounds that call the mightOf old Clan-Alpine to the fight.Thick beat the rapid notes, as whenThe mustering hundreds shake the glen,And hurrying at the signal dread,'Fine battered earth returns their tread.Then prelude light, of livelier tone,Expressed their merry marching on,Ere peal of closing battle rose,With mingled outcry, shrieks, and blows;And mimic din of stroke and ward,As broadsword upon target jarred;And groaning pause, ere yet again,Condensed, the battle yelled amain:The rapid charge, the rallying shout,Retreat borne headlong into rout,And bursts of triumph, to declareClan-Alpine's congest--all were there.Nor ended thus the strain, but slowSunk in a moan prolonged and low,And changed the conquering clarion swellFor wild lament o'er those that fell.

The war-pipes ceased, but lake and hillWere busy with their echoes still;And, when they slept, a vocal strainBade their hoarse chorus wake again,While loud a hundred clansmen raiseTheir voices in their Chieftain's praise.Each boatman, bending to his oar,With measured sweep the burden bore,In such wild cadence as the breezeMakes through December's leafless trees.The chorus first could Allan know,'Roderick Vich Alpine, ho! fro!'And near, and nearer as they rowed,Distinct the martial ditty flowed.