THE way was long, the wind was cold,
The Minstrel was infirm and old;
His withered cheek, and tresses gray,
Seem'd 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, welladay! their date was fled,
His tuneful brethren all were dead;
And he, neglected and oppress'd,
Wish'd to be with them, and at rest.
No more on prancing palfrey borne,
He caroll'd, light as lark at morn;
No longer courted and caress'd,
High placed in hall, a welcome guest,
He pour'd, 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 call'd his harmless art a crime.
A wandering Harper, scorn'd and poor,
He begg'd his bread from door to door.
And tuned, to please a peasant's ear,
The harp a king had loved to hear.

Whose ponderous grate and massy bar
Had oft roll'd back the tide of war,
But never closed the iron door
Against the desolate and poor.
The Duchess mark'd 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,
Though born in such a high degree;
In pride of power, in beauty's bloom,
Had wept o'er Monmouth's bloody tomb!

When kindness had his wants supplied,
And the old man was gratified,
Began to rise his minstrel pride:
And he began to talk anon,

Of good Earl Francis, dead and gone,
And of Earl Walter,§ rest him, God!
A braver ne'er to battle rode;
And how full many a tale he knew,
Of the old warriors of Buccleuch :
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.

The humble boon was soon obtain'd; The aged Minstrel audience gain'd.

†The Duchess. Anne, the heiress of Buccleuch, who had been married to the unhappy Duke of Monmouth, son of Charles II. He was beheaded for rebellion against James II., 1685.

Earl Francis. The Duchess's late father.

§ Walter, Earl of Buccleuch, grandfather of the Duchess, and a celebrated warrior.

But, when he reach'd 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,
Came wildering o'er his aged brain
He tried to tune his harp in vain!
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;
He had play'd it to King Charles the Good,
When he kept court in Holyrood;
And much he wish'd, yet fear'd to try
The long-forgotten melody.
Amid the strings his fingers stray'd,
And an uncertain warbling made,
And oft he shook his hoary head.
But when he caught the measure wild,
The old man raised his face, and smiled;
And lighten'd 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.

CANTO FIRST.

I.

THE feast was over in Branksome tower,1 And the Ladye had gone to her secret bower;

Her bower that was guarded by word and by spell,

Deadly to hear, and deadly to tell
Jesu Maria, shield us well!

Vengeance, deep-brooding o'er the slain,
Had lock'd the source of softer woe;
And burning pride, and high disdain,
Forbade the rising tear to flow;
Until, amid his sorrowing clan,

Her son lisp'd from the nurse's knee "And if I live to be a man,

My father's death revenged shall be! Then fast the mother's tears did seek To dew the infant's kindling cheek.

X.

All loose her negligent attire,

All loose her golden hair,

Hung Margaret o'er her slaughter'd sire,
And wept in wild despair:

But not alone the bitter tear
Had filial grief supplied;
For hopeless love, and anxious fear,
Had lent their mingled tide;
Nor in her mother's alter'd eye
Dared she to look for sympathy.
Her lover, 'gainst her father's clan,
With Carr in arms had stood,7
When Mathouse-burn to Melrose ran,
All purple with their blood;
And well she knew, her mother dread,
Before Lord Cranstoun she should wed,
Would see her on her dying bed.

XI.

Of noble race the Ladye came,
Her father was a clerk of fame,

Of Bethune's line of Picardie: 9
He learn'd the art that none may name,
In Padua, far beyond the sea.10
Men said, he changed his mortal frame

By feat of magic mystery;

For when, in studious mode, he paced
St. Andrew's cloister'd hall,
His form no darkening shadow traced
Upon the sunny wall! 11

XII.

And of his skill, as bards avow,

He taught that Ladye fair, Till to her bidding she could bow The viewless forms of air. And now she sits in secret bower, In old Lord David's western tower, And listens to a heavy sound, That moans the mossy turrets round

Is it the roar of Teviot's tide,

That chafes against the scaur's* red side?
Is it the wind that swings the oaks?
Is it the echo from the rocks?
What may it be, the heavy sound,
That moans old Branksome's turrets
round?

XIII.

At the sullen, moaning sound,
The ban-dogs bay and howl;
And, from the turrets round,

Loud whoops the startled owl.
In the hall, both squire and knight
Swore that a storm was near,
And looked forth to view the night;
But the night was still and clear!

XIV.

From the sound of Teviot's tide,
Chafing with the mountain's side,
From the groan of the wind-swung oak,
From the sullen echo of the rock,
From the voice of the coming storm,

The Ladye knew it well!

It was the Spirit of the Flood that spoke, And he call'd on the Spirit of the Fell.

XV.

RIVER SPIRIT.

'Sleep'st thou, brother?"

MOUNTAIN SPIRIT.

-"Brother, nay

On my hills the moon-beams play.
From Craik-cross to Skelfhill-pen,
By every rill, in every glen,

Merry elves their morris pacing,
To aërial minstrelsy,

Emerald rings on brown heath tracing,
Trip it deft and merrily.
Up, and mark their nimble feet!
Up, and list their music sweet!"

XVI.

RIVER SPIRIT.

"Tears of an imprison'd maiden
Mix with my polluted stream;
Margaret of Branksome, sorrow-laden,
Mourns beneath the moon's pale beam.

* A steep bank.

Tell me, thou, who view'st the stars, When shall cease these feudal jars? What shall be the maiden's fate? Who shall be the maiden's mate?"

XVII.

MOUNTAIN SPIRIT.

"Arthur's slow wain his course doth roll,
In utter darkness round the pole;
The Northern Bear lowers black and grim;
Orion's studded belt is dim;
Twinkling faint, and distant far,
Shimmers through mist each planet star;

Ill may I read their high decree !
But no kind influence deign they shower
On Teviot's tide, and Branksome's tower,
Till pride be quell'd, and love be free."

XVIII.

The unearthly voices ceast,

And the heavy sound was still; It died on the river's breast,

It died on the side of the hill. But round Lord David's tower The sound still floated near; For it rung in the Ladye's bower, And it rung in the Ladye's ear. She raised her stately head,

And her heart throbb'd high with pride:

"Your mountains shall bend,

And your streams ascend,

Ere Margaret be our foeman's bride!

XIX.

The Ladye sought the lofty hall,
Where many a bold retainer lay,
And, with jocund din, among them all,
Her son pursued his infant play.
A fancied moss-trooper,† the boy

The truncheon of a spear bestrode,
And round the hall, right merrily,

In mimic foray rode. Even bearded knights, in arms grown old, Share in his frolic gambols bore, Albeit their hearts, of rugged mould,

Were stubborn as the steel they wore.

† Moss-trooper, a borderer, whose profession was pillage of the English. These marauders were called moss-troopers because they dwelt in the mosses, and rode, on their incursions, in troops.

For the gray warriors prophesied How the brave boy, in future war, Should tame the Unicorn's pride,* Exalt the Crescent and the Star.f

xx.

The Ladye forgot her purpose high,
One moment, and no more;
One moment gazed with a mother's eye,
As she paused at the arched door;
Then from amid the armed train

She call'd to her William of Deloraine.

XXI.

A stark moss-trooping Scott was he,
As e'er couch'd Border lance by knee;
Through Solway sands, through Tarras

moss,

Blindfold, he knew the paths to cross;
By wily turns, by desperate bounds,
Had baffled Percy's best blood-hounds; 12
In Eske or Liddel, fords were none,
But he would ride them, one by one;
Alike to him was time or tide,
December's snow, or July's pride;
Alike to him was tide or time,
Moonless midnight, or matin prime;
Steady of heart, and stout of hand,
As ever drove prey from Cumberland;
Five times outlaw'd had he been,
By England's King, and Scotland's
Queen.

XXII.

"Sir William of Deloraine, good at need,
Mount thee on the wightest steed;
Spare not to spur, nor stint to ride,
Until thou come to fair Tweedside;
And in Melrose's holy pile

Seek thou the monk of St. Mary's aisle.
Greet the Father well from me;

Say that the fated hour is come, And to-night he shall watch with thee, To win the treasure of the tomb; For this will be St. Michael's night, And, though stars be dim, the moon is bright;

The Unicorn Head was the crest of the Carrs, or Kerrs, of Cessford, the enemies of the child's late father.

↑ The Crescent and the Star were armorial bearings of the Scotts of Buccleuch.

Soon in his saddle sate he fast,
And soon the steep descent he past,
Soon cross'd the sounding barbican,§
And soon the Teviot side he won.
Eastward the wooded path he rode,
Green hazels o'er his basnet nod;
He pass'd the Peel of Goldiland,"
And cross'd old Borthwick's roaring
strand;

Dimly he view'd the Moat-hill's mound,
Where Druid shades still flitted round;
In Hawick twinkled many a light;
Behind him soon they set in night;
And soon he spurr'd his courser keen
Beneath the tower of Hazeldean.

Hairibee, the place on Carlisle wall where the moss-troopers, if caught, were hung. The neck-verse was the first verse of Psalm 51. If a criminal claimed on the scaffold "benefit of his clergy," a priest instantly presented him with a Psalter, and he read his neck-verse. The power of reading it entitled him to his life, which was spared; but he was banished the kingdom. See Palgrave's "Merchant and Friar."

$ Barbican, the defence of the outer gate of a feudal castle.

Peel, a Border tower.