66

But fare ye weel, my ae fause love,
That I hae loved sae lang!

It sets ye chuse another love,

And let young Benjie gang.'

Then Marjorie turned her round about,
The tear blinding her ee,
"I dare na, dare na, let thee in,

But I'll come down to thee."

Then saft she smiled, and said to him,
"O what ill hae I done?"
He took her in his armis twa,

And threw her o'er the linn.

The stream was strang, the maid was stout, And laith laith to be dang†,

But, ere she wan the Lowden banks,

Her fair colour was wan.

Then up bespak her eldest brother,
"O see na ye what I see?"

And out then spak her second brother,
"It's our sister Marjorie !"
Out then spak her eldest brother,

"O how shall we her ken ?" And out then spak her youngest brother, "There's a honey-mark on her chin." Then they've ta'en up the comely corpse, And laid it on the ground" wha has killed our ae sister, And how can he be found? "The night it is her low lykewake, The morn her burial day,

And we maun watch at mirk midnight,
And hear what she will say?"

Wi' doors ajar, and candle light,

And torches burning clear,
The streikit corpse, till still midnight,
They waked, but naething hear.

About the middle o' the night,

The cocks began to craw,

And at the dead hour o' the night,
The corpse began to thraw.

་

"O wha has done thee wrang, sister, Or dared the deadly sin?

Wha was sae stout, and feared nae dout,
As thraw ye o'er the linn?"
"Young Benjie was the first ae man,
I laid my love upon;
He was sae stout and proud-hearted,
He threw me o'er the linn."
"Sall we young Benjie head, sister,

Sall we young Benjie hang,
Or, sall we pike out his twa gray een,
And punish him ere he gang?"
"Ye mauna Benjie head, brothers,

Ye mauna Benjie hang,

But ye maun pike out his twa gray e'en, And punish him e'er he

gang.

Sets ye-Becomes you-ironical.

"Tie a green gravat round his neck,

And lead him out and in,

And the best ae servant about your house,
To wait young Benjie on.

"And ay, at every seven years' end,
Ye'll tak him to the linn;

For that's the penance he maun drie,
To scugg his deadly sin."

§ 162. Introduction to Canto Second of Marmion. SCOTT.

WHEN, musing on companions gone,
We doubly feel ourselves alone,
Something, my friend, we yet may gain,
There is a pleasure in this pain:
It soothes the love of lonely rest,
Deep in each gentler heart impressed.
'Tis silent amid worldly toils,
And stifled soon by mental broils;
But, in a bosom thus prepared,
Its still small voice is often heard,
Whispering a mingled sentiment,
'Twixt resignation and content.
Oft in my mind such thoughts awake,
By lone St. Mary's silent lake;
Thou know'st it well,-nor fen, nor sedge,
Pollute the pure lake's crystal edge;
Abrupt and sheer, the mountains sink
At once upon the level brink;
And just a trace of silver sand
Marks where the water meets the land.
Far in the mirror, bright and blue,
Each hill's huge outline you may view;
Shaggy with heath, but lonely bare,
Nor tree, nor bush, nor brake is there,
Save where, of land, yon slender line
Bears thwart the lake the scatter'd pine.
Yet even this nakedness has power,
And aids the feeling of the hour:
Nor thicket, dell, nor copse you spy,
Where living thing concealed might lie;
Nor point, retiring, hides a dell,
Where swain, or woodman lone, might dwell,
There's nothing left to fancy's guess,
You see that all is loneliness:
And silence aids-though the steep hills
Send to the lake a thousand rills;
In summer tide, so soft they weep,
The sound but lulls the ear asleep;
Your horse's hoof-tread sounds too rude,
So stilly is the solitude.

Nought living meets the eye or ear,
But well I ween the dead are near;
For though, in feudal strife, a foe
Hath laid Our Lady's chapel low,
Yet still, beneath the hallowed soil,
The peasant rests him from his toil,
And, dying, bids his bones be laid,
Where erst his simple fathers prayed.

If age had tamed the passions' strife,
And fate had cut my ties to life,

Here, have I thought, 'twere sweet to dwell,
And rear again the chaplain's cell,
Like that same peaceful hermitage,
Where Milton longed to spend his age.
"Twere sweet to mark the setting day
On Bourhope's lonely top decay;
And, as it faint and feeble died,

On the broad lake, and mountain's side,
Το
say "Thus pleasures fade away;
Youth, talents, beauty thus decay,
And leave us dark, forlorn, and grey;"-
Then gaze on Dryhope's ruined tower,
And think on Yarrow's faded flower:
And when that mountain-sound I heard
Which bids us be for storm prepared,—
The distant rustling of his wings,
As up his force the tempest brings,
"Twere sweet, ere yet his terrors rave,
To sit upon the wizard's grave;

That wizard priest's, whose bones are thrust
From company of holy dust;

On which no sun-beam ever shines(So superstition's creed divines,) Thence view the lake, with sullen roar, Heave her broad billows to the shore; And mark the wild swans mount the gale, Spread wide through mist their snowy sail, And ever stoop again, to lave Their bosoms on the surging wave: Then, when against the driving hail No longer might my plaid avail, Back to my lonely home retire, And light my lamp, and trim my There ponder o'er some mystic lay, Till the wild tale had all its sway, And, in the bittern's distant shriek, 1 heard unearthly voices speak, And thought the wizard priest was come, To claim again his ancient home! And bade my busy fancy range, To frame him fitting shape and strange, Till from the task my brow I cleared, And smiled to think that I had feared.

fire:

§ 163. Trial of Constance. SCOTT.
WHILE round the fire such legends go,
Far different was the scene of woe,
Where, in a secret aisle beneath,
Council was held of life and death.
It was more dark and lone that vault,
Than the worst dungeon cell;
Old Colwulf built it, for his fault,
In penitence to dwell,

When he, for cowl and beads, laid down
The Saxon battle-axe and crown.
This den, which, chilling every sense
Of feeling, hearing, sight,
Was called the Vault of Penitence,
Excluding air and light,
Was, by the prelate Sexhelm, made
A place of burial, for such dead
As, having died in mortal sin,
Might not be laid the church within.

"Twas now a place of punishment; Whence if so loud a shriek was sent,

As reached the upper air,

The hearers blessed themselves, and said, The spirits of the sinful dead

Bemoaned their torments there..

But though, in the monastic pile,
Did of this penitential aisle

Some vague tradition go,

Few only, save the abbot, knew
Where the place lay; and still more few
Were those, who had from him the clew
To that dread vault to go.
Victim and executioner

Were blind-fold when transported there.
In low dark rounds the arches hung,
From the rude rock the side-walls sprung;
The grave-stones, rudely sculptured o'er,
Half sunk in earth, by time half wore,
Were all the pavement of the floor;
The mildew drops fell one by one,
With tinkling plash, upon
the stone.
A cresset, in an iron chain,
Which served to light this drear domain,
With damp and darkness seemed to strive,
As if it scarce might keep alive;
And yet it dimly served to show
The awful conclave met below.

There, met to doom in secrecy,

Were placed the heads of convents three;
All servants of Saint Benedict,
The statutes of whose order strict

On iron table lay;

In long black dress, on seats of stone,
Behind were these three judges shown,

By the pale cresset's ray:
The abbess of Saint Hilda, there,
Sat for a space with visage bare,
Until, to hide her bosom's swell,
And tear-drops that for pity fell,

She closely drew her veil :
Yon shrouded figure, as I guess,
By her proud mien and flowing dress,
Is Tynemouth's haughty prioress,

And she with awe looks pale:
And he, that ancient man, whose sight
Has long been quenched by age's night,
Upon whose wrinkled brow alone,
Nor ruth nor mercy's trace is shown,
Whose look is hard and stern,-
Saint Cuthbert's abbot is his style;
For sanctity called, through the isle,
The saint of Landisfarn.
Before them stood a guilty pair;
But, though an equal fate they share,
Yet one alone deserves our care.
Her sex a page's dress belied;
The cloak and doublet, loosely tied,
Obscured her charms, but could not hide.
Her cap down o'er her face she drew,

And, on her doublet breast,
She tried to hide the badge of blue,
Lord Marmion's falcon crest.
2 P

But, at the prioress' command, A monk undid the silken band,

That tied her tresses fat,

And raised the bonnet from her head,
And down her slender form they spread,
In ringlets rich and rare.
Constance de Beverley they know,
Sister professed of Fontevraud,

Whom the church numbered with the dead,
For broken vows, and convent fled.

When thus her face was given to view,
(Although so pallid was her hue,
It did a ghastly contrast bear
To those bright ringlets glistering fair,)
Her look composed, and steady eye,
Bespoke a matchless constancy;
And there she stood so calm and pale,
That, but her breathing did not fail,
And motion slight of eye and head,
And of her bosom, warranted,
That neither sense nor pulse she lacks,
You might have thought a form of wax,
Wrought to the very life was there;
So still she was, so pale, so fair.
Her comrade was a sordid soul,

Such as does murder for a meed;
Who, but of fear, knows no controul,
Because his conscience, scared and foul,

Feels not the import of his deed;
One, whose brute-feeling ne'er aspires
Beyond his own more brute desires.
Such tools the tempter ever needs,
To do the savagest of deeds;
For them no visioned terrors daunt,
Their nights no fancied spectres haunt;
One fear with them, of all most base,
The fear of death,-alone finds place.
This wretch was clad in frock and cowl,
And shamed not loud to moan and howl,
His body on the floor to dash,

And crouch, like hound beneath the lash;
While his mute partner, standing near,
Waited her doom without a tear.

Yet well the luckless wretch might shriek,
Well might her paleness terror speak!
For there were seen in that dark wall,
Two niches, narrow, deep, and tall;~
Who enters at such griesly door,
Shall ne'er, I ween, find exit more.
In each a slender meal was laid,
Of roots, of water, and of bread:
By each, in Benedictine dress,
Two haggard monks stood motionless;
Who, holding high a blazing torch,
Shewed the grim entrance of the porch :
Reflecting back the smoky beam,
The dark-red walls and arches gleam.
Hewn stones and cement were displayed,
And building tools in order laid.
These executioners were chose,
As men who were with mankind foes,
And, with despite and envy fired,
Into the cloister had retired;

Or who, in desperate doubt of grace,
Strove, by deep penance, to efface

Of some foul crime the stain;
For, as the vassals of her will,
Such men the church selected still,
As either joyed in doing ill,

Or thought more grace to gain,
If, in her cause, they wrestled down
Feelings their nature strove to own.
By strange device were they brought there,
They knew not how, and knew not where.
And now that blind old abbot rose,

To speak the chapter's doom,
On those the wall was to inclose,
Alive, within the tomb;

But stopped, because that woful maid,
Gathering her powers, to speak essayed.
Twice she essayed, and twice in vain;
Her accents might no utterance gain;
Nought but imperfect murmurs slip
From her convulsed and quivering lip:
"Twixt each attempt all was so still,
You seemed to hear a distant rill-
'Twas ocean's swells and falls;
For though this vault of sin and fear
Was to the sounding surge so near,
A tempest there you scarce could hear,
So massive were the walls.
At length, an effort sent apart
The blood that curdled to her heart,

And light came to her eye,
And colour dawned upon her cheek,
A hectic and a fluttered streak,
Like that left on the Cheviot peak,

By autumn's stormy sky;
And when her silence broke at length,
Still as she spoke, she gathered strength,
And armed herself to bear.
It was a fearful sight to see
Such high resolve and constancy,
In form so oft and fair.

"I speak not to implore your grace; Well know I, for one minute's space

Successless might I sue:

Nor do I speak your prayers to gain ;
For if a death of lingering pain,
To cleanse my sins, be penance vain,
Vain are your masses too.—
I listened to a traitor's tale,
I left the convent and the veil,
For three long years I bowed my pride,
A horse-boy in his train to ride;
And well my folly's meed he gave,
Who forfeited, to be his slave,
All here and all beyond the grave.—
He saw young Clara's face more fair,
He knew her of broad lands the heir,
Forgot his vows, his faith forswore,
And Constance was beloved no more.
"Tis an old tale, and often told;

But, did my fate and wish agree,
Ne'er had been read, in story old,
Of maiden true betrayed for gold,
That loved, or was avenged, like me!