The lay of the last minstrel. Intr. and canto 1. With notes. Ed. by W.T. Jeffcott and G.J. Tossell

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Page 6 - THE way was long, the wind was cold, The Minstrel was infirm and old; His withered cheek, and tresses gray, 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 16 - The humble boon was soon obtained: The aged Minstrel audience gained. But when he reached the room of state 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; And scenes, long past, of joy and pain.
Page 10 - He poured, to lord and lady gay, The unpremeditated lay: Old times were changed, old manners gone; A stranger filled the Stuarts' throne; The bigots of the iron time Had called his harmless art a crime.
Page 14 - 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, Though born in such a high degree : In pride...
Page 18 - The pitying Duchess praised its chime, And gave him heart, and gave him time. Till every string's according glee Was blended into harmony. And then, he said, he would full fain He could recall an ancient strain He never thought to sing again. It was not framed for village churls, But for high dames and mighty earls...
Page 28 - Ten squires, ten yeomen, mail-clad men, Waited the beck of the warders ten; Thirty steeds, both fleet and wight, Stood saddled in stable day and night, Barbed with frontlet of steel, I trow, And with Jedwood-axe at saddle-bow; A hundred more fed free in stall:— Such was the custom of Branksome Hall.
Page 26 - Ten of them were sheathed in steel, With belted sword, and spur on heel: They quitted not their harness bright, Neither by day, nor yet by night: They lay down to rest, With corslet laced...
Page 8 - Stuarts' throne; The bigots of the iron time Had called his harmless art a crime. A wandering harper, scorned and poor, He begged his bread from door to door, And tuned, to please a peasant's ear, The harp a king had loved to hear.
Page 14 - And, would the noble Duchess deign To listen to an old man's strain, Though stiff his hand, his voice though weak, He thought even yet, the sooth to speak, That, if she loved the harp to hear, He could make music to her ear.
Page 20 - And lightened up his faded eye, With all a poet's ecstasy ! 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.

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