THE COMPLETE POETICAL WORKS OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. Walter Scott

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ And mix sobriety with wine,

       And honest mirth with thoughts divine:

       Small thought was his in after time

       E’er to be hitched into a rhyme.

       The simple sire could only boast,

       That he was loyal to his cost;

       The banished race of kings revered,

       And lost his land—but kept his beard.

       In these dear halls, where welcome kind

       Is with fair liberty combined;

       Where cordial friendship gives the hand,

       And flies constraint the magic wand

       Of the fair dame that rules the land.

       Little we heed the tempest drear,

       While music, mirth, and social cheer,

       Speed on their wings the passing year.

       And Mertoun’s halls are fair e’en now,

       When not a leaf is on the bough.

       Tweed loves them well, and turns again,

       As loth to leave the sweet domain,

       And holds his mirror to her face,

       And clips her with a close embrace:

       Gladly as he, we seek the dome,

       And as reluctant turn us home.

       How just that, at this time of glee,

       My thoughts should, Heber, turn to thee!

       For many a merry hour we’ve known,

       And heard the chimes of midnight’s tone.

       Cease, then, my friend! a moment cease,

       And leave these classic tomes in peace!

       Of Roman and of Grecian lore

       Sure mortal brain can hold no more.

       These ancients, as Noll Bluff might say,

       “Were pretty fellows in their day;”

       But time and tide o’er all prevail -

       On Christmas eve a Christmas tale,

       Of wonder and of war—”Profane!

       What! leave the loftier Latian strain,

       Her stately prose, her verse’s charms,

       To hear the clash of rusty arms:

       In Fairy Land or Limbo lost,

       To jostle conjuror and ghost,

       Goblin and witch!” Nay, Heber dear,

       Before you touch my charter, hear;

       Though Leyden aids, alas! no more,

       My cause with many-languaged lore,

       This may I say:- in realms of death

       Ulysses meets Alcides’ WRAITH;

       AEneas, upon Thracia’s shore,

       The ghost of murdered Polydore;

       For omens, we in Livy cross,

       At every turn, locutus Bos.

       As grave and duly speaks that ox,

       As if he told the price of stocks

       Or held in Rome republican,

       The place of common-councilman.

       All nations have their omens drear,

       Their legends wild of woe and fear.

       To Cambria look—the peasant see

       Bethink him of Glendowerdy,

       And shun “the spirit’s blasted tree.”

       The Highlander, whose red claymore

       The battle turned on Maida’s shore,

       Will, on a Friday morn, look pale,

       If asked to tell a fairy tale:

       He fears the vengeful elfin king,

       Who leaves that day his grassy ring:

       Invisible to human ken,

       He walks among the sons of men.

       Did’st e’er, dear Heber, pass along

       Beneath the towers of Franchemont,

       Which, like an eagle’s nest in air,

       Hang o’er the stream and hamlet fair;

       Deep in their vaults, the peasants say,

       A mighty treasure buried lay,

       Amassed through rapine and through wrong,

       By the last Lord of Franchemont.

       The iron chest is bolted hard,

       A huntsman sits, its constant guard;

       Around his neck his horn is hung,

       His hanger in his belt is slung;

       Before his feet his bloodhounds lie:

       And ‘twere not for his gloomy eye,

       Whose withering glance no heart can brook,

       As true a huntsman doth he look,

       As bugle e’er in brake did sound,

       Or ever hallooed to a hound.

       To chase the fiend, and win the prize,

       In that same dungeon ever tries

       An aged necromantic priest:

       It is an hundred years at least,

       Since ‘twixt them first the strife begun,

       And neither yet has lost nor won.

       And oft the conjuror’s words will make

       The stubborn demon groan and quake;

       And oft the bands of iron break,

       Or bursts one lock, that still amain,

       СКАЧАТЬ