Scott's Lady of the Lake. Walter Scott

      “Huntsman, rest! thy chase is done;

      While our slumbrous spells assail ye,

      Dream not, with the rising sun,

      Bugles here shall sound reveille.82

      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.”

      The hall was clear’d – the stranger’s bed

      Was there of mountain heather spread,

      Where oft a hundred guests had lain,

      And dream’d their forest sports again.

      But vainly did the heath flower shed

      Its moorland fragrance round his head;

      Not Ellen’s spell had lull’d 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 worse phantom of the night! —

      Again return’d 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 —

      Oh, were his senses false or true?

      Dream’d he of death, or broken vow,

      Or is it all a vision now?

      At length, with Ellen in a grove

      He seem’d to walk, and speak of love;

      She listen’d with a blush and sigh,

      His suit was warm, his hopes were high.

      He sought her yielded hand to clasp,

      And a cold gauntlet83 met his grasp:

      The phantom’s sex was changed and gone,

      Upon its head a helmet shone;

      Slowly enlarged to giant size,

      With darken’d cheek and threatening eyes,

      The grisly visage, stern and hoar,

      To Ellen still a likeness bore. —

      He woke, and, panting with affright,

      Recall’d the vision of the night.

      The hearth’s decaying brands were red,

      And deep and dusky luster shed,

      Half showing, half concealing, all

      The uncouth trophies of the hall.

      ’Mid those the stranger fix’d his eye

      Where that huge falchion hung on high,

      And thoughts on thoughts, a countless throng,

      Rush’d, chasing countless thoughts along,

      Until, the giddy whirl to cure,

      He rose, and sought the moonshine pure.

      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,

      Play’d 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 fever’d dream,

      But still the Douglas is the theme?

      I’ll dream no more – by manly mind

      Not even in sleep is will resign’d.

      My midnight orisons said o’er,

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

      His midnight orisons he told,84

      A prayer with every bead of gold,

      Consign’d to Heaven his cares and woes,

      And sunk in undisturb’d repose;

      Until the heath cock shrilly crew,

      And morning dawn’d on Benvenue.

      At morn the blackcock trims his jetty wing,

      ’Tis morning prompts the linnet’s85 blithest lay,

      All Nature’s children feel the matin86 spring

      Of life reviving, with reviving day;

      And while yon little bark glides down the bay,

      Wafting the stranger on his way again,

      Morn’s genial influence roused a minstrel gray,

      And sweetly o’er the lake was heard thy strain,

      Mix’d with the sounding harp, O white-hair’d Allan-Bane!87

      “Not faster yonder rowers’ might

      Flings from their oars the spray,

      Not faster yonder rippling bright,

      That tracks the shallop’s course in light,

      Melts in the lake away,

      Than men from memory erase

      The benefits of former days;

      Then, stranger, go! good speed the while,

      Nor think again of the lonely isle.

      “High place to thee in royal court,

      High place in battled88

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