THE COMPLETE POETICAL WORKS OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. Walter Scott

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СКАЧАТЬ demon mocks my skill.

       But thou—who little know’st thy might,

       As born upon that blessed night

       When yawning graves, and dying groan,

       Proclaimed hell’s empire overthrown -

       With untaught valour shalt compel

       Response denied to magic spell.’

       ‘Gramercy,’ quoth our monarch free,

       Place him but front to front with me,

       And by this good and honoured brand,

       The gift of Coeur-de-Lion’s hand,

       Soothly I swear, that, tide what tide,

       The demon shall a buffet bide.’

       His bearing bold the wizard viewed,

       And thus, well pleased, his speech renewed:

       ‘There spoke the blood of Malcolm!—mark:

       Forth pacing hence, at midnight dark,

       The rampart seek, whose circling crown

       Crests the ascent of yonder down:

       A southern entrance shalt thou find;

       There halt, and there thy bugle wind,

       And trust thine elfin foe to see,

       In guise of thy worst enemy:

       Couch then thy lance, and spur thy steed -

       Upon him! and Saint George to speed!

       If he go down, thou soon shalt know

       Whate’er these airy sprites can show;

       If thy heart fail thee in the strife,

       I am no warrant for thy life.’

       XXIII

      “Soon as the midnight bell did ring,

       Alone, and armed, forth rode the king

       To that old camp’s deserted round:

       Sir Knight, you well might mark the mound

       Lefthand the town—the Pictish race,

       The trench, long since, in blood did trace:

       The moor around is brown and bare,

       The space within is green and fair.

       The spot our village children know,

       For there the earliest wildflowers grow;

       But woe betide the wandering wight

       That treads its circle in the night!

       The breadth across, a bowshot clear,

       Gives ample space for full career:

       Opposed to the four points of heaven,

       By four deep gaps are entrance given.

       The southernmost our monarch passed,

       Halted, and blew a gallant blast;

       And on the north, within the ring,

       Appeared the form of England’s king

       Who then, a thousand leagues afar,

       In Palestine waged holy war:

       Yet arms like England’s did he wield,

       Alike the leopards in the shield,

       Alike his Syrian courser’s frame,

       The rider’s length of limb the same:

       Long afterwards did Scotland know,

       Fell Edward was her deadliest foe.

       XXIV

      “The vision made our monarch start,

       But soon he manned his noble heart,

       And in the first career they ran,

       The Elfin Knight fell, horse and man;

       Yet did a splinter of his lance

       Through Alexander’s visor glance,

       And razed the skin—a puny wound.

       The King, light leaping to the ground,

       With naked blade his phantom foe

       Compelled the future war to show.

       Of Largs he saw the glorious plain,

       Where still gigantic bones remain,

       Memorial of the Danish war;

       Himself he saw, amid the field,

       On high his brandished war-axe wield,

       And strike proud Haco from his car,

       While all around the shadowy kings

       Denmark’s grim ravens cowered their wings.

       ‘Tis said, that, in that awful night,

       Remoter visions met his sight,

       Foreshowing future conquests far,

       When our son’s sons wage northern war;

       A royal city, tower and spire,

       Reddened the midnight sky with fire,

       And shouting crews her navy bore,

       Triumphant to the victor shore.

       Such signs may learned clerks explain -

       They pass the wit of simple swain.

       XXV

      “The joyful King turned home again,

       Headed his host, and quelled the Dane;

       But yearly, when returned the night

       Of his strange combat with the sprite,

       His wound must bleed and smart;

       Lord Gifford then would gibing say,

       ‘Bold as ye were, my liege, ye pay

       The penance of your start.’

       Long since, beneath СКАЧАТЬ