Should for himself and chieftain stand

Against stout Musgrave, hand to hand.

XXXIV

I know right well that in their lay

Full many minstrels sing and say

Such combat should be made on horse,

On foaming steed, in full career,
With brand to aid, whenas the spear
Should shiver in the course:
But he, the jovial harper,1 taught
Me, yet a youth, how it was fought,
In guise which now I say;

He knew each ordinance and clause
Of Black Lord Archibald's battle-laws,2
In the old Douglas' day.

He brooked not, he, that scoffing tongue
Should tax his minstrelsy with wrong,

Or call his song untrue:

For this, when they the goblet plied,

And such rude taunt had chafed his pride,

The bard of Reull he slew.

On Teviot's side in fight they stood,

And tuneful hands were stained with blood, Where still the thorn's white branches wave, Memorial o'er his rival's grave.

1 See Note 114.

See Note 115.

XXXV

Why should I tell the rigid doom
That dragged my master to his tomb;

How Ousenam's maidens tore their hair, Wept till their eyes were dead and dim, And wrung their hands for love of him Who died at Jedwood Air?

He died!

his scholars, one by one,

To the cold silent grave are gone;

And I, alas! survive alone,

To muse o'er rivalries of yore,

And grieve that I shall hear no more
The strains, with envy heard before;
For, with my minstrel brethren fled,
My jealousy of song is dead.

He paused: the listening dames again
Applaud the hoary Minstrel's strain.
With many a word of kindly cheer, -
In pity half, and half sincere,—
Marvelled the Duchess how so well
His legendary song could tell
Of ancient deeds, so long forgot;

Of feuds, whose memory was not;

Of forests, now laid waste and bare;

Of towers, which harbour now the hare;

Of manners, long since changed and gone;

Of chiefs, who under their grey stone
So long had slept that fickle Fame
Had blotted from her rolls their name,
And twined round some new minion's head
The fading wreath for which they bled:
In sooth, 't was strange this old man's verse
Could call them from their marble hearse.

The harper smiled, well pleased; for ne'er
Was flattery lost on poet's ear.

A simple race! they waste their toil
For the vain tribute of a smile;

E'en when in age their flame expires,
Her dulcet breath can fan its fires:
Their drooping fancy wakes at praise,
And strives to trim the short-lived blaze.

Smiled then, well pleased, the aged man,
And thus his tale continued ran.

CANTO FIFTH

CALL it not vain:

I

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 balm 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.

II

Not that, in sooth, o'er mortal urn
Those things inanimate can mourn,

But that the stream, the wood, the gale,
Is vocal with the plaintive wail
Of those who, else forgotten long,
Lived in the poet's faithful song,
And, with the poet's parting breath,
Whose memory feels a second death.

The maid's pale shade, who wails her lot,

That love, true love, should be forgot,

From rose and hawthorn shakes the tear
Upon the gentle minstrel's bier:

The phantom knight, his glory fled,

Mourns o'er the field he heaped with dead,
Mounts the wild blast that sweeps amain
And shrieks along the battle-plain;

The chief, whose antique crownlet long
Still sparkled in the feudal song,

Now, from the mountain's misty throne,
Sees, in the thanedom once his own,
His ashes undistinguished lie,

His place, his power, his memory die;

His groans the lonely caverns fill,

His tears of rage impel the rill;

All mourn the minstrel's harp unstrung,
Their name unknown, their praise unsung.

III

Scarcely the hot assault was stayed,

The terms of truce were scarcely made,

When they could spy, from Branksome's towers,
The advancing march of martial powers.
Thick clouds of dust afar appeared,

And trampling steeds were faintly heard;
Bright spears above the columns dun
Glanced momentary to the sun;