THE COMPLETE POETICAL WORKS OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. Walter Scott

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       Guarded with gold, with ermine lin’d;

       A merlin sat upon her wrist

       Held by a leash of silken twist.

       VI

      The spousal rites were ended soon:

       ‘Twas now the merry hour of noon

       And in the lofty arched hall

       Was spread the gorgeous festival.

       Steward and squire, with heedful haste,

       Marshall’d the rank of every guest;

       Pages, with ready blade, were there,

       The mighty meal to carve and share:

       O’er capon, heron-shew, and crane,

       And princely peacock s gilded train,

       And o’er the boar-head, garnish’d brave,

       And cygnet from St. Mary’s wave;

       O’er ptarmigan and venison

       The priest had spoke his benison.

       Then rose the riot and the din,

       Above, beneath, without, within!

       For, from the lofty balcony,

       Rung trumpet, shalm, and psaltery:

       Their clanging bowls old warriors quaff’d

       Loudly they spoke, and loudly laugh’d;

       Whisper’d young knights, in tone more mild,

       To ladies fair, and ladies smil’d.

       The hooded hawks, high perch’d on beam

       The clamor join’d with whistling scream

       And flapp’d their wings, and shook their bells

       In concert with the staghounds’ yells

       Round go the flasks of ruddy wine,

       From Bordeaux, Orleans, or the Rhine;

       Their tasks the busy sewers ply,

       And all is mirth and revelry.

       VII

      The Goblin Page, omitting still

       No opportunity of ill,

       Strove now, while blood ran hot and high,

       To rouse debate and jealousy;

       Till Conrad, Lord of Wolfenstein:

       By nature fierce, and warm with wine,

       And now in humor highly cross’d

       About some steeds his band had lost,

       High words to words succeeding still,

       Smote with his gauntlet stout Hunthill,

       A hot and hardy Rutherford,

       Whom men called Dickon Draw-the-sword.

       He took it on the page’s say

       Hunthill had driven these steeds away.

       Then Howard, Home, and Douglas rose

       The kindling discord to compose:

       Stern Rutherford right little said,

       But bit his glove, and shook his head.

       A fortnight thence, in Inglewood,

       Stout Conrad, cold, and drench’d in blood,

       His bosom gor’d with many a wound,

       Was by a woodman’s lyme-dog found;

       Unknown the manner of his death,

       Gone was his brand, both sword and sheath;

       But ever from that time, ‘twas said,

       That Dickon wore a Cologne blade.

       VIII

      The dwarf, who fear’d his master’s eye

       Might his foul treachery espie,

       Now sought the castle buttery,

       Where many a yeoman, bold and free,

       Revell’d as merrily and well

       As those that sat in lordly selle.

       Watt Tinlinn, there, did frankly raise

       The pledge to Arthur Fire-the-Braes

       And he, as by his breeding bound,

       To Howard’s merrymen sent it round.

       To quit them, on the English side,

       Red Roland Forster loudly cried,

       “A deep carouse to yon fair bride!”

       At every pledge, from vat and pail,

       Foam’d forth in floods the nut-brown ale

       While shout the riders every one;

       Such day of mirth ne’er cheer’d their clan,

       Since old Buccleuch the name did gain

       When in the cleuch the buck was ta’en.

       IX

      The wily page, with vengeful thought

       Remember d him of Tinlinn’s yew,

       And swore it should be dearly bought

       That ever he the arrow drew.

       First, he the yeoman did molest

       With bitter gibe and taunting jest;

       Told how he fled at Solway strife,

       And how Hob Armstrong cheer’d his wife;

       Then, shunning still his powerful arm,

       At unawares he wrought him harm;

       From trencher stole his choicest cheer,

       Dash’d from his lips his can of beer;

       Then, to his knee sly creeping on,

       With bodkin pierced him to the bone:

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