The Complete Poems of Sir Walter Scott. Walter Scott

Barbed with frontlet of steel, I trow,

       And with Jedwood-axe at saddlebow;

       A hundred more fed free in stall:

       Such was the custom of Branksome-Hall.

       VI

      Why do these steeds stand ready dight?

       Why watch these warriors, arm’d, by night?

       They watch, to hear the bloodhound baying?

       They watch to hear the war-horn braying;

       To see St. George’s red cross streaming,

       To see the midnight beacon gleaming:

       They watch, against Southern force and guile,

       Lest Scroop, or Howard, or Percy’s powers,

       Threaten Branksome’s lordly towers,

       From Warkwork, or Naworth, or merry Carlisle.

       VII

      Such is the custom of Branksome-Hall

       Many a valiant knight is here;

       But he, the chieftain of them all,

       His sword hangs rusting on the wall,

       Beside his broken spear.

       Bards long shall tell

       How Lord Walter fell.

       When startled burghers fled afar,

       The furies of the Border war;

       When the streets of high Dunedin

       Saw lances gleam and falchion redden,

       And heard the slogan’s deadly yell,

       Then the Chef of Branksome fell.

       VIII

      Can piety the discord heal,

       Or stanch the death-feud’s enmity?

       Can Christian lore, can patriot zeal,

       Can love of blessed charity?

       No! vainly to each holy shrine,

       In mutual pilgrimage they drew;

       Implored, in vain, the grace divine

       For chiefs, their own red falchions slew;

       While Cessford owns the rule of Carr,

       While Ettrick boasts the line of Scott,

       The slaughter’d chiefs, the mortal jar,

       The havoc of the feudal war,

       Shall never, never be forgot!

       IX

      In sorrow o’er Lord Walter’s bier

       The warlike foresters had bent;

       And many a flower,and many a tear,

       Old Teviot’s maids and matrons lent:

       But o’er her warrior’s bloody bier

       The Ladye dropp’d nor flowers nor tear!

       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,

       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;

       He learn’d the art that none may name,

       In Padua, far beyond the sea.

       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!

       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 bandogs 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 called on the Spirit of the Fell.

       XV

      River Spirit

       “Sleep’st thou, brother?”

       Mountain Spirit

       “Brother, nay,