Marmion. Walter Scott

If age had tamed the passions’ strife,

       And fate had cut my ties to life,

       Here have I thought, ’twere sweet to dwell,

       And rear again the chaplain’s cell, 185

       Like that same peaceful hermitage,

       Where Milton long’d to spend his age.

       ’Twere sweet to mark the setting day,

       On Bourhope’s lonely top decay;

       And, as it faint and feeble died 190

       On the broad lake, and mountain’s side,

       To say, ‘Thus pleasures fade away;

       Youth, talents, beauty thus decay,

       And leave us dark, forlorn, and grey;’

       Then gaze on Dryhope’s ruin’d tower, 195

       And think on Yarrow’s faded Flower:

       And when that mountain-sound I heard,

       Which bids us be for storm prepared,

       The distant rustling of his wings,

       As up his force the Tempest brings, 200

       ’Twere sweet, ere yet his terrors rave,

       To sit upon the Wizard’s grave;

       That Wizard Priest’s, whose bones are thrust,

       From company of holy dust;

       On which no sunbeam ever shines- 205

       (So superstition’s creed divines)-

       Thence view the lake, with sullen roar,

       Heave her broad billows to the shore;

       And mark the wild-swans mount the gale,

       Spread wide through mist their snowy sail, 210

       And ever stoop again, to lave

       Their bosoms on the surging wave;

       Then, when against the driving hail

       No longer might my plaid avail,

       Back to my lonely home retire, 215

       And light my lamp, and trim my fire;

       There ponder o’er some mystic lay,

       Till the wild tale had all its sway,

       And, in the bittern’s distant shriek,

       I heard unearthly voices speak, 220

       And thought the Wizard Priest was come,

       To claim again his ancient home!

       And bade my busy fancy range,

       To frame him fitting shape and strange,

       Till from the task my brow I clear’d, 225

       And smiled to think that I had fear’d.

       But chief, ’twere sweet to think such life,

       (Though but escape from fortune’s strife,)

       Something most matchless good and wise,

       A great and grateful sacrifice; 230

       And deem each hour, to musing given,

       A step upon the road to heaven.

       Yet him, whose heart is ill at ease,

       Such peaceful solitudes displease;

       He loves to drown his bosom’s jar 235

       Amid the elemental war:

       And my black Palmer’s choice had been

       Some ruder and more savage scene,

       Like that which frowns round dark Loch-skene.

       There eagles scream from isle to shore; 240

       Down all the rocks the torrents roar;

       O’er the black waves incessant driven,

       Dark mists infect the summer heaven;

       Through the rude barriers of the lake,

       Away its hurrying waters break, 245

       Faster and whiter dash and curl,

       Till down yon dark abyss they hurl.

       Rises the fog-smoke white as snow,

       Thunders the viewless stream below,

       Diving, as if condemn’d to lave 250

       Some demon’s subterranean cave,

       Who, prison’d by enchanter’s spell,

       Shakes the dark rock with groan and yell.

       And well that Palmer’s form and mien

       Had suited with the stormy scene, 255

       Just on the edge, straining his ken

       To view the bottom of the den,

       Where, deep deep down, and far within,

       Toils with the rocks the roaring linn;

       Then, issuing forth one foamy wave, 260

       And wheeling round the Giant’s Grave,

       White as the snowy charger’s tail,

       Drives down the pass of Moffatdale.

       Marriott, thy harp, on Isis strung,

       To many a Border theme has rung: 265

       Then list to me, and thou shalt know

       Of this mysterious Man of Woe.

       CANTO SECOND.

       Table of Contents

      THE CONVENT.

      1.

       THE breeze, which swept away the smoke

       Round Norham Castle roll’d,

       When all the loud artillery spoke,

       With lightning-flash, and thunder-stroke,

       As Marmion left the Hold,- 5

       It curl’d not Tweed alone, that breeze,

       For, far upon Northumbrian seas,

       It freshly blew, and strong,

       Where, from high Whitby’s cloister’d pile,

       Bound to Saint Cuthbert’s Holy Isle, 10

       It bore a bark along.

       Upon the gale she stoop’d her side,

       And bounded o’er the swelling tide,

       As she were dancing home;

       The merry seamen laugh’d, to see 15

       Their gallant ship so lustily

       Furrow the green sea-foam.

       Much joy’d they in their honour’d freight;

       For, on the deck, in chair of state,

       The Abbess of Saint Hilda placed, 20

       With five fair nuns, the galley graced.

       II.

       ’Twas sweet, to see these holy maids,

       Like birds escaped to green-wood shades,

       Their first flight from the cage,

       How timid, and how curious too, 25

       For all to them was strange and new,

       And all the common sights they view,

       Their wonderment engage.

       One eyed the shrouds and swelling sail,

       With many a benedicite; 30

       One at the rippling surge grew pale,