THE COMPLETE POETICAL WORKS OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. Walter Scott

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ style="font-size:15px;">       But wild as Bracklinn’s thundering wave;

       And generous, –save vindictive mood

       Or jealous transport chafe his blood:

       I grant him true to friendly band,

       As his claymore is to his hand;

       But O! that very blade of steel

       More mercy for a foe would feel:

       I grant him liberal, to fling

       Among his clan the wealth they bring,

       When back by lake and glen they wind,

       And in the Lowland leave behind,

       Where once some pleasant hamlet stood,

       A mass of ashes slaked with blood.

       The hand that for my father fought

       I honor, as his daughter ought;

       But can I clasp it reeking red

       From peasants slaughtered in their shed?

       No! wildly while his virtues gleam,

       They make his passions darker seem,

       And flash along his spirit high,

       Like lightning o’er the midnight sky.

       While yet a child,—and children know,

       Instinctive taught, the friend and foe,—

       I shuddered at his brow of gloom,

       His shadowy plaid and sable plume;

       A maiden grown, I ill could bear

       His haughty mien and lordly air:

       But, if thou join’st a suitor’s claim,

       In serious mood, to Roderick’s name.

       I thrill with anguish! or, if e’er

       A Douglas knew the word, with fear.

       To change such odious theme were best,—

       What think’st thou of our stranger guest? ‘—

       XV

      ‘What think I of him?—woe the while

       That brought such wanderer to our isle!

       Thy father’s battle-brand, of yore

       For Tineman forged by fairy lore,

       What time he leagued, no longer foes

       His Border spears with Hotspur’s bows,

       Did, self-unscabbarded, foreshow

       The footstep of a secret foe.

       If courtly spy hath harbored here,

       What may we for the Douglas fear?

       What for this island, deemed of old

       Clan-Alpine’s last and surest hold?

       If neither spy nor foe, I pray

       What yet may jealous Roderick say?—

       Nay, wave not thy disdainful head!

       Bethink thee of the discord dread

       That kindled when at Beltane game

       Thou least the dance with Malcolm Graeme;

       Still, though thy sire the peace renewed

       Smoulders in Roderick’s breast the feud:

       Beware!—But hark! what sounds are these?

       My dull ears catch no faltering breeze

       No weeping birch nor aspens wake,

       Nor breath is dimpling in the lake;

       Still is the canna’s hoary beard,

       Yet, by my minstrel faith, I heard—

       And hark again! some pipe of war

       Sends the hold pibroch from afar.’

       XVI

      Far up the lengthened lake were spied

       Four darkening specks upon the tide,

       That, slow enlarging on the view,

       Four manned and massed barges grew,

       And, bearing downwards from Glengyle,

       Steered full upon the lonely isle;

       The point of Brianchoil they passed,

       And, to the windward as they cast,

       Against the sun they gave to shine

       The bold Sir Roderick’s bannered Pine.

       Nearer and nearer as they bear,

       Spears, pikes, and axes flash in air.

       Now might you see the tartars brave,

       And plaids and plumage dance and wave:

       Now see the bonnets sink and rise,

       As his tough oar the rower plies;

       See, flashing at each sturdy stroke,

       The wave ascending into smoke;

       See the proud pipers on the bow,

       And mark the gaudy streamers flow

       From their loud chanters down, and sweep

       The furrowed bosom of the deep,

       As, rushing through the lake amain,

       They plied the ancient Highland strain.

       XVII

      Ever, as on they bore, more loud

       And louder rung the pibroch proud.

       At first the sounds, by distance tame,

       Mellowed along the waters came,

       And, lingering long by cape and bay,

       Wailed every harsher note away,

       Then bursting bolder on the ear,

       The clan’s shrill Gathering they could hear,

       СКАЧАТЬ