Part the Third Modern
By Walter Scott.
When seven years more were come and gone,
Was war through Scotland spread,
And Ruberslaw show’d high Dunyon
His beacon blazing red.
Then all by bonny Coldingknow,
Pitch’d palliounes took their room,
And crested helms, and spears a-rowe,
Glanced gaily through the broom.
The Leader, rolling to the Tweed,
Resounds the ensenzie;
They roused the deer from Caddenhead,
To distant Torwoodlee.
The feast was spread in Ercildoune,
In Learmont’s high and ancient hall:
And there were knights of great renown,
And ladies, laced in pall.
Nor lacked they, while they sat at dine,
The music nor the tale,
Nor goblets of the blood-red wine,
Nor mantling quaighs of ale.
True Thomas rose, with harp in hand,
When as the feast was done:
(In minstrel strife, in Fairy Land,
The elfin harp he won.)
Hush’d were the throng, both limb and tongue,
And harpers for envy pale;
And armed lords lean’d on their swords,
And hearken’d to the tale.
In numbers high, the witching tale
The prophet pour’d along;
No after bard might e’er avail
Those numbers to prolong.
Yet fragments of the lofty strain
Float down the tide of years,
As buoyant on the stormy main
A parted wreck appears.
He sung King Arthur’s Table Round;
The Warrior of the Lake:
How courteous Gawaine met the wound,
And bled for ladies’ sake.
But chief, in gentle Tristrem’s praise,
The notes melodious swell;
Was none excell’d in Arthur’s days,
The Knight of Lionelle.
For Marke, his cowardly uncle’s right,
A venom’d wound he bore;
When fierce Morholde he slew in fight,
Upon the Irish shore.
No art the poison might withstand;
No medicine could be found,
Till lovely Isolde’s lily hand
Had probed the rankling wound.
With gentle hand and soothing tongue
She bore the leech’s part;
And while she o’er his sick-bed hung,
He paid her with his heart.
O fatal was the gift, I ween!
For, doom’d in evil tide,
The maid must be rude Cornwall’s queen,
His cowardly uncle’s bride.
Their loves, their woes, the gifted bard
In fairy tissue wove;
Where lords, and knights, and ladies bright,
In gay confusion strove.
The Garde Joyeuse, amid the tale,
High-rear’d its glittering head;
And Avalon’s enchanted vale
In all its wonders spread.
Brangwain was there, and Segramore,
And fiend-born Merlin’s gramarye;
Of that famed wizard’s mighty lore,
O who could sing but he?
Through many a maze the winning song
In changeful passion led,
Till bent at length the listening throng
O’er Tristrem’s dying bed.
His ancient wounds their scars expand,
With agony his heart is wrung:
O where is Isolde’s lily hand,
And where her soothing tongue?
She comes! she comes!—like flash of flame
Can lovers’ footsteps fly;
She comes! She comes!—she only came
To see her Tristrem die.
She saw him die; her latest sigh
Joined in a kiss his parting breath;
The gentlest pair, that Britain bare,
United are in death.
Then paused the harp: its lingering sound
Died slowly on the ear;
The silent guests still bent around,
For still they seem’d to hear.
Then wo broke forth in murmurs weak:
Nor ladies heaved alone the sigh:
But, half ashamed, the rugged cheek
Did many a gauntlet dry.
On Leader’s stream, and Learmont’s tower,
The mists of evening close;
In camp, in castle, or in bower,
Each warrior sought repose.
Lord Douglas, in his lofty tent,
Dream’d o’er the woful tale:
When footsteps light across the bent
The warrior’s ears assail.
He starts, he wakes;—“What, Richard, ho!
Arise, my page, arise!
What venturous wight, at dead of night,
Dare step where Douglas lies!”—
Then forth they rush’d; by Leader’s tide,
A selcouth sight they see—
A hart and hind pace side by side,
As white as snow on Fairnalie.
Beneath the moon, with gesture proud,
They stately move and slow;
Nor scare they at the gathering crowd,
Who marvel as they go.
To Learmont’s tower a message sped,
As fast as page might run;
And Thomas started from his bed,
And soon his clothes did on.
First he woxe pale, and then woxe red;
Never a word he spake but three;—
“My sand is run; my thread is spun;
This sign regardeth me.”
The elfin harp his neck around,
In minstrel guise, he hung:
And on the wind, in doleful sound,
Its dying accents rung.
Then forth he went; yet turn’d him oft
To view his ancient hall:
On the gray tower, in lustre soft,
The autumn moonbeams fall;
And Leader’s waves, like silver sheen,
Danced shimmering in the ray;
In deepening mass, at distance seen,
Broad Soltra’s mountains lay.
“Farewell, my father’s ancient tower!
A long farewell,” said he:
“The scene of pleasure, pomp, or power,
Thou never more shalt be.
“To Learmont’s name no foot of earth
Shall here again belong,
And on thy hospitable hearth
The hare shall leave her young.
“Adieu! adieu!” again he cried,
All as he turn’d him roun’—
“Farewell to Leader’s silver tide!
Farewell to Ercildoune!”
The hart and hind approach’d the place,
As lingering yet he stood;
And there, before Lord Douglas’ face,
With them he cross’d the flood.
Lord Douglas leap’d on his berry-brown steed,
And spurred him the Leader o’er;
But though he rode with lightning speed,
He never saw them more.
Some said to hill, and some to glen,
Their wond’rous course had been;
But ne’er in haunts of living men
Again was Thomas seen.
Sir Walter Scott.