THE COMPLETE POETICAL WORKS OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. Walter Scott

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СКАЧАТЬ Till to her lips in measured frame

       The minstrel verse spontaneous came.

       Song Continued.

      ‘Huntsman, rest! thy chase is done;

       While our slumbrous spells assail ye,

       Dream not, with the rising sun,

       Bugles here shall sound reveille.

       Sleep! the deer is in his den;

       Sleep! thy hounds are by thee lying;

       Sleep! nor dream in yonder glen

       How thy gallant steed lay dying.

       Huntsman, rest! thy chase is done;

       Think not of the rising sun,

       For at dawning to assail ye

       Here no bugles sound reveille.’

       XXXIII

      The hall was cleared,– the stranger’s bed,

       Was there of mountain heather spread,

       Where oft a hundred guests had lain,

       And dreamed their forest sports again.

       But vainly did the heath-flower shed

       Its moorland fragrance round his head;

       Not Ellen’s spell had lulled to rest

       The fever of his troubled breast.

       In broken dreams the image rose

       Of varied perils, pains, and woes:

       His steed now flounders in the brake,

       Now sinks his barge upon the lake;

       Now leader of a broken host,

       His standard falls, his honor’s lost.

       Then,—from my couch may heavenly might

       Chase that worst phantom of the night!—

       Again returned the scenes of youth,

       Of confident, undoubting truth;

       Again his soul he interchanged

       With friends whose hearts were long estranged.

       They come, in dim procession led,

       The cold, the faithless, and the dead;

       As warm each hand, each brow as gay,

       As if they parted yesterday.

       And doubt distracts him at the view,—

       O were his senses false or true?

       Dreamed he of death or broken vow,

       Or is it all a vision now?

       XXXIV

      At length, with Ellen in a grove

       He seemed to walk and speak of love;

       She listened with a blush and sigh,

       His suit was warm, his hopes were high.

       He sought her yielded hand to clasp,

       And a cold gauntlet met his grasp:

       The phantom’s sex was changed and gone,

       Upon its head a helmet shone;

       Slowly enlarged to giant size,

       With darkened cheek and threatening eyes,

       The grisly visage, stern and hoar,

       To Ellen still a likeness bore.—

       He woke, and, panting with affright,

       Recalled the vision of the night.

       The hearth’s decaying brands were red

       And deep and dusky lustre shed,

       Half showing, half concealing, all

       The uncouth trophies of the hall.

       Mid those the stranger fixed his eye

       Where that huge falchion hung on high,

       And thoughts on thoughts, a countless throng,

       Rushed, chasing countless thoughts along,

       Until, the giddy whirl to cure,

       He rose and sought the moonshine pure.

       XXXV

      The wild rose, eglantine, and broom

       Wasted around their rich perfume;

       The birch-trees wept in fragrant balm;

       The aspens slept beneath the calm;

       The silver light, with quivering glance,

       Played on the water’s still expanse,—

       Wild were the heart whose passion’s sway

       Could rage beneath the sober ray!

       He felt its calm, that warrior guest,

       While thus he communed with his breast:—

       ‘Why is it, at each turn I trace

       Some memory of that exiled race?

       Can I not mountain maiden spy,

       But she must bear the Douglas eye?

       Can I not view a Highland brand,

       But it must match the Douglas hand?

       Can I not frame a fevered dream,

       But still the Douglas is the theme?

       I’ll dream no more,— by manly mind

       Not even in sleep is will resigned.

       My midnight orisons said o’er,

       I’ll turn to rest, and dream no more.’

       His midnight orisons he told,

       A prayer with every bead of gold,

       Consigned to heaven his cares and woes,

       And sunk in undisturbed repose,

      Until the heath-cock СКАЧАТЬ