The Lady of the Lake. Walter Scott

So wondrous wild, the whole might seem

       The scenery of a fairy dream.

      XIII.

       Onward, amid the copse 'gan peep

       A narrow inlet, still and deep,

       Affording scarce such breadth of brim

       As served the wild duck's brood to swim.

       Lost for a space, through thickets veering,

       But broader when again appearing,

       Tall rocks and tufted knolls their face

       Could on the dark-blue mirror trace;

       And farther as the Hunter strayed,

       Still broader sweep its channels made.

       The shaggy mounds no longer stood,

       Emerging from entangled wood,

       But, wave-encircled, seemed to float,

       Like castle girdled with its moat;

       Yet broader floods extending still

       Divide them from their parent hill,

       Till each, retiring, claims to be

       An islet in an inland sea.

      XIV.

       And now, to issue from the glen,

       No pathway meets the wanderer's ken,

       Unless he climb with footing nice

       A far-projecting precipice.

       The broom's tough roots his ladder made,

       The hazel saplings lent their aid;

       And thus an airy point he won,

       Where, gleaming with the setting sun,

       One burnished sheet of living gold,

       Loch Katrine lay beneath him rolled,

       In all her length far winding lay,

       With promontory, creek, and bay,

       And islands that, empurpled bright,

       Floated amid the livelier light,

       And mountains that like giants stand

       To sentinel enchanted land.

       High on the south, huge Benvenue

       Down to the lake in masses threw

       Crags, knolls, and mounds, confusedly hurled,

       The fragments of an earlier world;

       A wildering forest feathered o'er

       His ruined sides and summit hoar,

       While on the north, through middle air,

       Ben-an heaved high his forehead bare.

      XV.

       From the steep promontory gazed

       The stranger, raptured and amazed,

       And, 'What a scene were here,' he cried,

       'For princely pomp or churchman's pride!

       On this bold brow, a lordly tower;

       In that soft vale, a lady's bower;

       On yonder meadow far away,

       The turrets of a cloister gray;

       How blithely might the bugle-horn

       Chide on the lake the lingering morn!

       How sweet at eve the lover's lute

       Chime when the groves were still and mute!

       And when the midnight moon should lave

       Her forehead in the silver wave,

       How solemn on the ear would come

       The holy matins' distant hum,

       While the deep peal's commanding tone

       Should wake, in yonder islet lone,

       A sainted hermit from his cell,

       To drop a bead with every knell!

       And bugle, lute, and bell, and all,

       Should each bewildered stranger call

       To friendly feast and lighted hall.

      XVI.

       'Blithe were it then to wander here!

       But now—beshrew yon nimble deer—

       Like that same hermit's, thin and spare,

       The copse must give my evening fare;

       Some mossy bank my couch must be,

       Some rustling oak my canopy.

       Yet pass we that; the war and chase

       Give little choice of resting-place;—

       A summer night in greenwood spent

       Were but to-morrow's merriment:

       But hosts may in these wilds abound,

       Such as are better missed than found;

       To meet with Highland plunderers here

       Were worse than loss of steed or deer.—

       I am alone;—my bugle-strain

       May call some straggler of the train;

       Or, fall the worst that may betide,

       Ere now this falchion has been tried.'

      XVII.

       But scarce again his horn he wound,

       When lo! forth starting at the sound,

       From underneath an aged oak

       That slanted from the islet rock,

       A damsel guider of its way,

       A little skiff shot to the bay,

       That round the promontory steep

       Led its deep line in graceful sweep,

       Eddying, in almost viewless wave,

       The weeping willow twig to rave,

       And kiss, with whispering sound and slow,

       The beach of pebbles bright as snow.

       The boat had touched this silver strand

       Just as the Hunter left his stand,

       And stood concealed amid the brake,

       To view this Lady of the Lake.

       The maiden paused, as if again

       She thought to catch the distant strain.

       With head upraised, and look intent,

       And eye and ear attentive bent,

       And locks flung back, and lips apart,

       Like monument of Grecian art,

       In listening mood, she seemed to stand,

       The guardian Naiad of the strand.

      XVIII.

       And ne'er did Grecian chisel trace

       A Nymph, a Naiad, or a Grace,

       Of finer form or lovelier face!

       What though the sun, with ardent frown,

       Had slightly tinged her cheek with brown—

       The sportive toil, which, short and light

       Had dyed her glowing hue so bright,

       Served too in hastier swell to show

       Short glimpses of a breast of snow:

       What though no rule of courtly grace

       To measured mood had trained her pace—

       A foot more light, a step more true,

       Ne'er from the heath-flower dashed the dew;

       E'en the slight