The lay of the last minstrel. With intr. and notes by J. Morison

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Page 101 - Whose midnight revels, by a forest side, Or fountain, some belated peasant sees, Or dreams he sees, while overhead the moon Sits arbitress, and nearer to the earth Wheels her pale course ; they, on their mirth and dance Intent, with jocund music charm his ear ; At once with joy and fear his heart rebounds.
Page 77 - 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 burn'd, As home his footsteps he hath turn'd, From wandering on a foreign strand...
Page 93 - 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 ? When, shrivelling like a parched scroll, The flaming heavens together roll ; When louder yet, and yet more dread, Swells the high trump that wakes the dead ! Oh ! on that day, that wrathful day, When man to judgment wakes from clay, Be THOU the trembling sinner's stay, Though heaven and earth shall pass away ! HUSH'D is the harp — the Minstrel...
Page 21 - When the broken arches are black in night, And each shafted oriel glimmers white; When the cold light's uncertain shower Streams on the ruined central tower; When buttress and buttress, alternately, Seem framed of ebon and ivory; When silver edges the imagery, And the scrolls that teach thee...
Page 8 - 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 24 - The moon on the east oriel shone Through slender shafts of shapely stone, By foliaged tracery combined : Thou wouldst have thought some fairy's hand 'Twixt poplars straight the osier wand In many a freakish knot had twined, Then framed a spell when the work was done, And changed the willow wreaths to stone.
Page 7 - 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 63 - 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 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.
Page 7 - THE way was long, the wind was cold, The Minstrel was infirm and old ; His wither'd cheek, and tresses grey, 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, well-a-day ! their date was fled, His tuneful brethren all were dead ; And he, neglected and oppress'd...
Page 8 - 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...

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