The lay of the last minstrel, a poem

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Page 43 - IF thou would'st view fair Melrose aright, Go visit it by the pale moon-light ; For the gay beams of lightsome day Gild, but to flout, the ruins gray.
Page 16 - In varying cadence, soft or strong, He swept the sounding chords along : The present scene, the future lot, His toils, his wants, were all forgot: Cold diffidence, and age's frost, In the full tide of song were lost ; Each blank, in faithless memory void, The poet's glowing thought supplied : And, while his harp responsive rung, 'Twas thus the latest minstrel sung.
Page 154 - True love's the gift which God has given To man alone beneath the heaven : It is not fantasy's hot fire, Whose wishes, soon as granted, fly ; It liveth not in fierce desire, With dead desire it doth not die ; It is the secret sympathy, The silver link, the silken tie, Which heart to heart, and mind to mind, In body and in soul can bind.
Page 175 - BREATHES there the man, with soul so dead, Who never to himself hath said, This is my own, my native land ? Whose heart hath ne'er within him burned, As home his footsteps he hath turned From wandering on a foreign strand ? If such there breathe, go, mark him well; For him no minstrel raptures swell; High though his titles, proud his name, $ Boundless his wealth as wish can claim, — Despite those titles, power, and pelf, The wretch, concentred all in self, Living, shall forfeit fair renown, And,...
Page 15 - Where she with all her ladies sate, Perchance he wished his boon denied: For, when to tune his harp he tried, His trembling hand had lost the ease Which marks security to please...
Page 11 - Seemed to have known a better day ; The harp, his sole remaining joy, Was carried by an orphan boy ; The last of all the bards was he, Who sung of Border chivalry. For, well-a-day ! their date was fled, His tuneful brethren all were dead; And he, neglected and oppressed, Wished to be with them, and at rest.
Page 206 - That day of wrath, that dreadful day, When heaven and earth shall pass away, What power shall be the sinner's stay? How shall he meet that dreadful day?
Page 13 - Duchess marked his weary pace, His timid mien, and reverend face, And bade her page the menials tell, That they should tend the old man well : For she had known adversity...
Page 141 - CALL it not vain : — they do not err, Who say, that when the Poet dies, Mute Nature mourns her worshipper, And celebrates his obsequies : Who say, tall cliff, and cavern lone, For the departed Bard make moan ; That mountains weep in crystal rill ; That flowers in tears of bahn distil; Through his loved groves that breezes sigh, And oaks, in deeper groan, reply ; And rivers teach their rushing wave To murmur dirges round his grave.
Page 102 - Where'er thou wind'st, by dale or hill, All, all is peaceful, all is still, As if thy waves, since Time was born, Since first they roll'd upon the Tweed, Had only heard the shepherd's reed, Nor started at the bugle-horn.

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