THE COMPLETE POETICAL WORKS OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. Walter Scott

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СКАЧАТЬ The Knight to stanch the life-stream tried,—

       ‘Stranger, it is in vain!’ she cried.

       ‘This hour of death has given me more

       Of 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 eye

       That thou wert mine avenger born.

       Seest thou this tress?—O. still I ‘ve worn

       This 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 wave

       Like 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 bright

       Let 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 gloom

       Be 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.’

       XXVIII

      A kindly heart had brave FitzJames;

       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 fair

       He 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 imbrue

       In 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 FitzJames 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 strength

       He couched him in a thicket hoar

       And 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 guessed

       That all this Highland hornet’s nest

       Would muster up in swarms so soon

       As 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.’

       XXIX

      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 light

       To guide the wanderer’s steps aright,

       Yet not enough from far to show

       His figure to the watchful foe.

       With cautious step and ear awake,

       He climbs the crag and threads the brake;

       And not the summer solstice there

       Tempered the midnight mountain air,

       But every breeze that swept the wold

       Benumbed 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 watchfire close before him burned.

       XXX

      Beside its embers red and clear

       Basked in his plaid a mountaineer;

       And up he sprung with sword in hand,—

       ‘Thy name and purpose! СКАЧАТЬ