THE COMPLETE POETICAL WORKS OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. Walter Scott

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СКАЧАТЬ style="font-size:15px;">       The steepy rock, and frantic tide,

       Approach of human step denied;

       And thus these lines, and ramparts rude,

       Were left in deepest solitude.

       III

      And, for they were so lonely, Clare

       Would to these battlements repair,

       And muse upon her sorrows there,

       And list the seabird’s cry;

       Or slow, like noontide ghost, would glide

       Along the dark grey bulwark’s side,

       And ever on the heaving tide

       Look down with weary eye.

       Oft did the cliff, and swelling main,

       Recall the thoughts of Whitby’s fane -

       A home she ne’er might see again;

       For she had laid adown,

       So Douglas bade, the hood and veil,

       And frontlet of the cloister pale,

       And Benedictine gown:

       It were unseemly sight, he said,

       A novice out of convent shade.

       Now her bright locks, with sunny glow,

       Again adorned her brow of snow;

       Her mantle rich, whose borders round,

       A deep and fretted broidery bound,

       In golden foldings sought the ground;

       Of holy ornament, alone

       Remained a cross with ruby stone;

       And often did she look

       On that which in her hand she bore,

       With velvet bound, and broidered o’er,

       Her breviary book.

       In such a place, so lone, so grim,

       At dawning pale, or twilight dim,

       It fearful would have been

       To meet a form so richly dressed,

       With book in hand, and cross on breast,

       And such a woeful mien.

       Fitz-Eustace, loitering with his bow,

       To practise on the gull and crow,

       Saw her, at distance, gliding slow,

       And did by Mary swear -

       Some lovelorn fay she might have been,

       Or, in romance, some spellbound queen;

       For ne’er, in workday world, was seen

       A form so witching fair.

       IV

      Once walking thus, at evening tide,

       It chanced a gliding sail she spied,

       And, sighing, thought—”The Abbess, there,

       Perchance, does to her home repair;

       Her peaceful rule, where Duty, free,

       Walks hand in hand with Charity;

       Where oft Devotion’s tranced glow

       Can such a glimpse of heaven bestow,

       That the enraptured sisters see

       High vision, and deep mystery;

       The very form of Hilda fair,

       Hovering upon the sunny air,

       And smiling on her votaries’ prayer.

       Oh! wherefore, to my duller eye,

       Did still the saint her form deny!

       Was it that, seared by sinful scorn,

       My heart could neither melt nor burn?

       Or lie my warm affections low,

       With him, that taught them first to glow?

       Yet, gentle Abbess, well I knew,

       To pay thy kindness grateful due,

       And well could brook the mild command,

       That ruled thy simple maiden band.

       How different now! condemned to bide

       My doom from this dark tyrant’s pride.

       But Marmion has to learn, ere long,

       That constant mind, and hate of wrong,

       Descended to a feeble girl,

       From Red De Clare, stout Gloucester’s Earl:

       Of such a stem, a sapling weak,

       He ne’er shall bend, although he break.”

       V

      “But see;—what makes this armour here?”

       For in her path there lay

       Targe, corslet, helm;—she viewed them near.

       “The breastplate pierced!—Ay, much I fear,

       Weak fence wert thou ‘gainst foeman’s spear,

       That hath made fatal entrance here,

       As these dark blood-gouts say.

       Thus, Wilton! Oh! not corslet’s ward,

       Not truth, as diamond pure and hard,

       Could be thy manly bosom’s guard,

       On yon disastrous day!”

       She raised her eyes in mournful mood -

       Wilton himself before her stood!

       It might have seemed his passing ghost,

       For every youthful grace was lost;

       And joy unwonted, and surprise,

       Gave their strange wildness to his eyes.

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