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.
KILMENY.
Bonnie Kilmeny gaed up the glen;
But it wasna to meet Duneira’s men,
Nor the rosy monk of the isle to see,
For Kilmeny was pure as pure could be.
It was only to hear the yorling sing,
And pu’ the cress-flower round the spring;
The scarlet hypp and the hind-berrye,
And the nest that hung frae the hazel-tree;
For Kilmeny was pure as pure could be.
But lang may her minny look o’er the wa’;
And lang may she seek i’ the greenwood shaw;
Lang the Laird o’ Duneira blame,
And lang, lang greet or Kilmeny come hame!
When many lang day had come and fled,
When grief grew calm and hope was dead,
When mass for Kilmeny’s soul had been sung,
When the bedesman had prayed and the dead-bell rung,
Late, late in a gloaming, when all was still,
When the fringe was red on the westlin hill,
The wood was sere, the moon i’ the wane,
The reek o’ the cot hung o’er the plain,
Like a little wee cloud in the world its lane;
When the ingle lowed wi’ an eiry leme—
Late, late in the gloaming, Kilmeny came hame!
“Kilmeny, Kilmeny, where have you been?
Lang hae we sought baith holt and dean;
By burn, by ford, by greenwood tree,
Yet you are halesome and fair to see.
Where gat ye that joup o’ the lily sheen?
That bonnie snood o’ the birk sae green?
And those roses, the fairest that ever were seen?
Kilmeny, Kilmeny, where have you been?”
Kilmeny look’d up wi’ a lovely grace,
But nae smile was seen on Kilmeny’s face;
As still was her look, and as still was her e’e,
As the stillness that lay on the emerant lea,
Or the mist that sleeps on a waveless sea.
For Kilmeny had been, she kenned not where,
And Kilmeny had seen what she could not declare;
Kilmeny had been where the cock never crew,
Where the rain never fell, and the wind never blew.
But it seemed as the harp of the sky had rung,
And the airs of heaven played round her tongue,
When she spoke of the lovely forms she had seen,
And a land where sin had never been;
A land of love and a land of light,
Withouten sun, or moon, or night,
Where the river swa’d a living stream,
And the light a pure and cloudless beam;
The land of vision it would seem,
A still, an everlasting dream.
In yon greenwood there is a waik,
And in that waik there is a wene,
And in that wene that is a maike;
That neither has flesh, nor blood, nor bane;
And down in yon greenwood he walks his lane.
In that green wene Kilmeny lay,
Her bosom hap’d wi’ flowerets gay;
But the air was soft, and the silence deep,
And bonny Kilmeny fell sound asleep.
She kenned na mair, nor open’d her e’e,
Till wak’d by the hymns of a far countrye.
She woke on a couch of silk sae slim,
All striped wi’ the bars of the rainbow’s rim;
And lovely beings round were rife,
Who erst had travelled mortal life;
And aye they smiled and ’gan to speer,
“What spirit hath brought this mortal here?”
“Lang have I rang’d the world wide,”
A meek and reverend fere replied;
“Baith night and day I have watched the fair,
Eident a thousand years and mair.
Yes, I have watched o’er ilk degree,
Wherever blooms feminitye;
And sinless virgin, free of stain
In mind and body, found I nane.
Never since the banquet of time
Found I a virgin in her prime,
Till late this bonnie maiden I saw,
As spotless as the morning snaw;
Full twenty years she has lived as free
As the spirits that sojourn in this countrye:
I have brought her away from the snares of men,
That sin or death she never may ken.”
They clasped her waist, and her hands sae fair,
They kissed her cheeks and they kemmed her hair;
And round came many a blooming fere,
Saying, “Bonnie Kilmeny, ye’re welcome here!
Women are freed of the littand scorn,
O blessed be the day Kilmeny was born!
Now shall the land of the spirits see,
Now shall it ken what a woman may be!
Many lang year, in sorrow and pain,
Many lang year through the world we’ve gane,
Commissioned to watch fair woman-kind,
For it’s they who nurse the immortal mind.
We have watched their steps as the dawning shone,
And deep in the greenwood walks alone;
By lily bower and silken bed,
The viewless tears have been o’er them shed;
Have soothed their ardent minds to sleep,
Or left the couch of love to weep.
We have seen, we have seen! but the time maun come,
And the angels will weep at the day of doom!
“O would the fairest of mortal kind
Aye keep these holy truths in mind,
That kindred spirits their motions see,
Who watch their ways with anxious e’e,
And grieve for the guilt of humanitye!
O, sweet to Heaven the maiden’s prayer,
And the sigh that heaves a bosom sae fair!
And dear to heaven the words of truth
And the praise of virtue from beauty’s mouth!
And dear to the viewless forms of air,
The mind that kythes as the body fair.
“O, bonny Kilmeny! free frae stain,
If ever you seek the world again,
That world of sin, of sorrow, and fear,
O tell of the joys that are waiting here;
And tell of the signs you shall shortly see;
Of the times that are now, and the times that shall be.”
They lifted Kilmeny, they led her away,
And she walked in the light of a sunless day;
The sky was a dome of crystal bright,
The fountain of vision and fountain of light;
The emerant fields were of dazzling glow,
And the flowers of everlasting blow.
Then deep in the stream her body they laid,
That her youth and her beauty never might fade;
And they smil’d on Heaven when they saw her lie
In the stream of life that wandered by.
And she heard a song, she heard it sung,
She ken’d not where, but sae sweetly it rung,
It fell on the ear like a dream of the morn,—
“O, blest be the day that Kilmeny was born!
Now shall the land of the spirits see,
Now shall it ken what a woman may be!
The sun that shines on the world sae bright,
A borrowed gleid frae the fountain of light;
And the moon that sleeks the sky sae dun,
Like a gouden bow or a beamless sun,
Shall wear away and be seen nae mair,
And the angels shall miss them travelling the air.
But lang, lang after, baith nicht and day,
When the sun and the world have fled away;
When the sinner has gone to his waesome doom,
Kilmeny shall smile in eternal bloom!”
They bore her away, she wist not how,
For she felt not arm nor rest below;
But so swift they wained her through the light,
’Twas like the motion of sound or sight;
They seemed to split the gales of air,
And yet nor gale nor breeze was there.
Unnumbered groves below them grew,
They came, they passed, and backward flew,
Like floods of blossoms gliding on,
A moment seen, in a moment gone.
Ah! never vales to mortal view
Appeared like those o’er which they flew,
That land to human spirits given,
The lowermost vales of the storied heaven;
From thence they can view the world below,
And heaven’s blue gates with sapphires glow,
More glory yet unmeet to know.
They bore her far to a mountain green,
To see what mortal never had seen,
And they seated her high on a purple sward,
And bade her heed what she saw and heard,
And note the changes the spirits wrought,
For now she lives in the land of thought.
She looked, and she saw nor sun nor skies,
But a crystal dome of a thousand dyes:
She looked, and she saw nae land aright,
But an endless whirl of glory and light,
And radiant beings went and came,
Far swifter than wind, or the linkèd flame.
She hid her e’en frae the dazzling view;
She looked again, and the scene was new.
She saw a sun in a summer sky,
And clouds of amber sailing by;
A lovely land beneath her lay,
And that land had lakes and mountains grey;
And that land had valleys and hoary piles,
And marled seas and a thousand isles.
Its fields were speckled, its forests green,
And its lakes were all of the dazzling sheen,
Like magic mirrors, where shining lay,
The sun, and the sky, and the cloudlet grey;
Which heaved and trembled and gently swung,
On every shore they seemed to be hung:
For there they were seen on their downward plain
A thousand times and a thousand again;
In winding lake and placid firth,
Like peaceful heavens in the bosom of earth.
Kilmeny sighed and seemed to grieve,
For she found her heart to that land did cleave;
She saw the corn wave in the vale;
She saw the deer run down the dale;
She saw the plaid and the broad claymore,
And the brows that the badge of freedom bore,—
And she thought she had seen the land before.
She saw a lady sit on a throne,
The fairest that ever the sun shone on:
A lion licked her hand of milk,
And she held him in a leish of silk;
And a leifu’ maiden stood at her knee,
With a silver wand and melting e’e;
Her sovereign shield till love stole in,
And poisoned all the fount within.
Then a gruff, untoward bedesman came,
And hundit the lion on his dame;
And the guardian maid wi’ the dauntless e’e,
She dropped a tear, and left her knee;
And she saw till the queen frae the lion fled,
Till the bonniest flower o’ the world lay dead;
A coffin was set on a distant plain,
And she saw the red blood fall like rain;
Then bonny Kilmeny’s heart grew sair,
And she turned away, and could look nae mair.
Then the gruff, grim carle girned amain,
And they trampled him down, but he rose again;
And he bated the lion to deeds of weir,
Till he lapped the blood to the kingdom dear;
And, weening his head was danger preef,
When crowned with the rose and clover leaf,
He gowled at the carle, and chased him away,
To feed wi’ the deer on the mountain grey.
He gowled at the carl, and he gecked at heaven,
But his mark was set and his arles given,
Kilmeny a while her e’en withdrew;
She looked again, and the scene was new.
She saw before her fair unfurled
One-half of all the glowing world,
Where oceans rolled, and rivers ran,
To bound the aims of sinful man.
She saw a people, fierce and fell,
Burst frae their bonds like fiends of hell;
There lilies grew, and the eagle flew:
And she herkèd on her ravening crew,
Till the cities and towers were wrapped in a blaze,
And the thunder it roared o’er the lands and the seas.
The widows wailed, and the red blood ran,
And she threatened an end to the race of man;
She never loved, nor stood in awe,
Till caught by the lion’s deadly paw.
Oh! then the eagle swinked for life,
And brainzelled up a mortal strife;
But flew she north, or flew she south,
She met wi’ the gowl o’ the lion’s mouth.
With a mooted wing and waefu’ maen,
The eagle sought her eiry again:
But lang may she cower in her bloody nest,
And lang, lang sleek her wounded breast,
Before she sey another flight,
To play wi’ the norland lion’s might.
But to sing the sights Kilmeny saw,
So far surpassing nature’s law,
The singer’s voice wad sink away,
And the string of his harp wad cease to play.
But she saw till the sorrows of man were by,
And all was love and harmony;—
Till the stars of heaven fell calmly away,
Like flakes of snaw on a winter day.
Then Kilmeny begged again to see
The friends she had left in her ain countrie,
To tell of the place where she had been,
And the glories that lay in the land unseen;
To warn the living maidens fair,
The loved of heaven, the spirits’ care,
That all whose minds unmeled remain
Shall bloom in beauty when time is gane.
With distant music, soft and deep,
They lulled Kilmeny sound asleep;
And when she awakened, she lay her lane,
All happed with flowers, in the greenwood wene.
When seven long years had come and fled,
When grief was calm, and hope was dead,
When scarce was remembered Kilmeny’s name,
Late, late in a gloamin’ Kilmeny came hame.
And O, her beauty was fair to see,
But still and steadfast was her e’e!
Such beauty bard may never declare,
For there was no pride nor passion there;
And the soft desire of maiden’s e’en
In that mild face could never be seen.
Her seymar was the lily flower,
And her cheek the moss-rose in the shower;
And her voice like the distant melodye
That floats along the twilight sea.
But she loved to raike the lanely glen,
And keep afar frae the haunts of men,
Her holy hymns unheard to sing,
To suck the flowers, and drink the spring;
But wherever her peaceful form appeared
The wild beasts of the hill were cheered;
The wolf played blithely round the field,
The lordly byson lowed and kneeled;
The dun deer wooed with manner bland,
And cowered beneath her lily hand.
And when at eve the woodlands rung,
When hymns of other worlds she sung
In ecstacy of sweet devotion,
O, then the glen was all in motion!
The wild beasts of the forest came,
Broke from their boughs and faulds the tame,
And goved around, charmed and amazed;
Even the dull cattle crooned and gazed,
And murmured, and looked with anxious pain
For something the mystery to explain.
The buzzard came with the throstle-cock;
The corby left her houf in the rock;
The blackbird alang wi’ the eagle flew;
The hind came tripping over the dew;
The wolf and the kid their raike began,
And the kid and the lamb and the leveret ran;
The hawk and the hern attour them hung,
And the merle and the mavis forhooyed their young;
And all in a peaceful ring were hurled—
It was like an eve in a sinless world!
When a month and a day had come and gane,
Kilmeny sought the greenwood wene;
There laid her down on the leaves sae green,
And Kilmeny on earth was never mair seen.
But O, the words that fell frae her mouth
Were words of wonder, and words of truth!
But all the land were in fear and dread,
For they kendna whether she was living or dead.
It wasna her hame, and she couldna remain;
She left this world of sorrow and pain,
And returned to the land of thought again.
JAMES HOGG.
A FAIRY TALE.
Once in days of yore a little Princess, who had summers seen
Scarcely seven, and was christened by the holy name Christine,
Found herself, at eve, disporting in a fairy ring of green.
She had left the kingly castle; left her sire’s and mother’s side,
Left the banquet, where her brother feasted with his royal bride;
And had rambled to the forest valley, ’neath the summer moon,
Where she crossed the charmèd circle, aught thereof unknowing. Soon
Overwearied there she rested, wishing what might come to pass,
When by chance her hand alighted on a tuft of clover-grass.
This she grasped, a tiny handful:—Ah! Saint Mary! what she saw!—
Mounted on their milk-white palfreys, issuing from the shady shawe,
Came the fairies, caracolling gaily as they passed along;
Then, dismounting, closed around her in a bright and joyous throng;
Ladylings and lordlings dancing, piping, harping, full of song.
Clad in robes of silken silver, golden gossamer a few,
Decked with jewels bright as starlets, bright as berries, bright as dew;
Some in kirtle, scarf, and doublet, all of verdant forest hue.
Lovers there she saw, arm-twining, in the wild wood’s shadowy slade;
There some woful knight was kneeling at the feet of haughty maid;
Here was feasting, there was music; many a cunning prank was played.
Suddenly, the stateliest of them, he that most a monarch seemed,
(Cap of crimson his, and mantle like an emerald that beamed)
When he spied the gentle maiden, smiling on the merry scene;
“Ho! my lords and ladies!” cried he, “wist ye who with us hath been?
Lo! a mortal stands among us; fairer than a fairy she;
Let us speak with her a moment; questioning belongs to me.”
Straight the jocund throng desisted from their pastime and their play,
While the king of all the fairies to the childling thus ’gan say:—
“Lovely mortal! wilt thou, wilt thou quit with us thy childhood’s
bowers,
And in our enchanted Eden wander through a world of flowers?
All delights that thou hast dreamed of, gathered there shall be, and
thine;
Flowers that fade not, games that end not, skies that always mildliest
shine;
Kneaded cates of amber honey, and the rosebud’s dewy wine;
Wreaths of jewels, combs of silver, beads and bracelets all of gold,
And a diamond girdle round thee; mine I give thee now, behold!
Bowls of rubies thou shalt sip from, and from crystal tables dine,
And, at eve, on lily leaves, and mingled violets recline;
Wilt thou with me, sweet one, tell me!” “King,” she answered, “I am
thine.”
All the fairy court with rapture danced when thus they heard her say;
“Noble chieftain, child of beauty, let us haste,” they cried, “away!”
“Seal the covenant first,” quoth Oberon; and a magic cup of wine
Straight was brought him, when the king bethought him of the charm
divine,
Which the eyes of life had opened, to perceive their secret line.
Deep within the rosy goblet he the four-fold leaflet dipped,
Drank thereof, and to the damsel gave it; daintily she sipped.
Then to horse; the gallant knighthood lift their ladies to the sells;
Every steed was shod with silver, every bridle hung with bells,
Like the lilies of the valley, only all of silver. Swells
Soft the moonlight air with strains aforetime never heard;
More sweet than tone of nymph, or muse, or god, to both preferred.
So they ambled on until they reached a green and grove-crowned hill,
Which, without a gate, they entered, opening at the monarch’s will:
Then the portals closed upon her; woe is me for that dear child,
’Mid the insubstantial regions of the fairies thus beguiled.
Streams of bubbling gold flowed round her; fountains flung their diamond
spray,
O’er the fields a pearl-dew glistened; polished loadstone paved the way;
Trees were leafed with golden florins; daisies chimed like silver
crowns,
Musical and odorous breezes breathed across the velvet downs.
Soon they neared the regal palace twinkling in the aëry dyes,
Lilac, pearl, and beryl blended, of that country’s sunless skies;
While the fay-queen and her ladies, with their flower-robed damsels
fair,
Came forthright to greet her crowned spouse, and royal guestling there.
From the centre of the high dome swung a topaz solar bright,
Which through all the palace darted gleams of glad and glorious light,
Emerald lamplets ranked around it, tempered this with cooler ray;
While, without, the welkin poured one pale and ever-dawning day.
There the feast was flowing ever; stream-like music ceaseless played;
There the dance was always weaving; minstrels chanting in the shade;
There for aye the chase was bounding over dale and hill and plain,
And fair Christine, on hound-high steed, the foremost of the elfin
train.
Still she saddened when she minded of the simple garlands she
Wove of wild rose and of woodbine, with her playmates on the lea;
And the hazel and brown beech nut which they gathered from the tree.
What though clad in jewelled raiment, trilling, tripping, day and night,
What though ply’d with queenly dainties, what though culling gold-blooms
bright,
Never in the feast delicious, nor the dance’s ’wildering whirl,
Nor the wine-cups merry orbit, could forget that lonely girl
The ancient hall where dwelled her sire, and, where, too, from her
mother’s side,
She, one summer’s eve, had stolen forth into the forest wide.
“Drink the dew,” the Fairy Fate said, “that the poppy lends repose,
Mingled with the fragrant nectar chaliced in the golden rose.”
Then she drank the draught Lethean from the bowl with flowerets crowned,
Flaming flowers, that all remembrance of her past existence drowned;
Thus, with lustres vainly lapsing, to perpetual childhood bound.
Never moon there marked the season; sun ne’er shadowed forth the time;
Years themselves were undistinguished in that soft and listless clime.
Now where mines of gold and silver branch, in many a gleaming vein,
Through the bosom of the mountain, ’neath the many leaguéd plain;
Where jasper and cornelian clear and alabaster pure,
And purple spars and glass-bright rocks the glittering caves immure,
She roamed; and all the virtues learned of every potent gem
Or mystic or medicinal; all gifts that unto them
Pertained of causing love, or hate, or infinite delight,
Imperial wealth, tyrannic state, long life, and beauty bright;
These into an armlet stringing, ruby, sapphire, emerald, pearl,
Threaded on the sunny tendril of one desultory curl,
As an amulet Titania gave to her, the spell-bound girl.