"Gae hame, gae hame, my seven bauld brothers, Gae hame and blaw your horn! I trow ye wad hae gi'en me the skaith, But I've gi'en you the scorn. "Commend me to my grey father, "Ah! woe to you, you light woman! An ill death may ye die! For we left father and sisters at hame Breaking their hearts for thee." SCOTT'S BORDER MINSTRELSY. ALLEN-A-DALE. ALLEN-A-DALE has no fagot for burning, Allen-a-Dale has no furrow for turning, Allen-a-Dale has no fleece for the spinning, Yet Allen-a-Dale has red gold for the winning. Come, read me my riddle! come, hearken my tale! And tell me the craft of bold Allena-Dale. The Baron of Ravensworth prances in pride, And he views his domains upon Arkindale side. The mere for his net, and the land for his game, The chase for the wild, and the park for the tame; Yet the fish of the lake, and the deer of the vale, Are less free to Lord Dacre than Allen-a-Dale! Allen-a-Dale was ne'er belted a knight, Though his spur be as sharp, and his blade be as bright; Allen-a-Dale is no baron or lord, Yet twenty tall yeomen will draw at his word; And the best of our nobles his bon net will vail, Who at Rere-cross on Stanmore meets Allen-a-Dale. Allen-a-Dale to his wooing is come; The mother, she asked of his household and home: "Though the castle of Richmond stand fair on the hill, My hall," quoth bold Allen, "shows gallanter still; 'Tis the blue vault of heaven, with its crescent so pale, And with all its bright spangles!" said Allen-a-Dale. The father was steel, and the mother was stone; They lifted the latch, and they bade him be gone; But loud, on the morrow, their wail and their cry: He had laughed on the lass with his bonny black eye, And she fled to the forest to hear a love-tale, And the youth it was told by was Allen-a-Dale! GLENARA. SCOTT. O, HEARD ye yon pibroch sound sad in the gale, Where a band cometh slowly with weeping and wail? 'Tis the chief of Glenara laments for his dear; And her sire and her people are called to her bier. Glenara came first, with the mourners and shroud; Her kinsmen they followed, but mourned not aloud; Their plaids all their bosoms were folded around; They marched all in silence, - they looked on the ground. In silence they reached, over mountain and moor, To a heath where the oak-tree grew lonely and hoar; "Now here let us place the gray stone of her cairn;Why speak ye no word? said Glenara the stern. "And tell me, I charge ye, ye clan of my spouse, Why fold ye your mantles, why cloud ye your brows?" So spake the rude chieftain; no answer is made, But each mantle, unfolding, a dagger displayed. "I dreamt of my lady, I dreamt of her shroud," Cried a voice from the kinsmen, all wrathful and loud; "And empty that shroud and that coffin did seem; Glenara! Glenara! now read me my dream!" O, pale grew the cheek of that chieftain, I ween, When the shroud was unclosed and no lady was seen; When a voice from the kinsmen spoke louder in scorn, 'Twas the youth who had loved the fair Ellen of Lorn, "I dreamt of my lady, I dreamt of her grief, I dreamt that her lord was a barbarous chief; On a rock of the ocean fair Ellen did As watchlight by the bed of some departing man. But soon, within that mirror huge and high, Was seen a self-emitted light to gleam; And forms upon its breast the earl 'gan spy, Cloudy and indistinct, as feverish dream; Till, slow arranging, and defined, they seem To form a lordly and a lofty room, Part lighted by a lamp with silver beam, Placed by a couch of Agra's silken loom, And part by moonshine pale, and part was hid in gloom. Fair all the pageant,- but how passing fair The slender form which lay on couch of Ind! O'er her white bosom strayed her hazel hair, Pale her dear cheek, as if for love she pined; All in her night-robe loose she lay reclined, And, pensive, read from tablet eburnine, Some strain that seemed her inmost soul to find: I was only a poor poet, made for singing at her casement, As the finches or the thrushes, while she thought of other things. Oh, she walked so high above me, she appeared to my abasement, In her lovely silken murmur, like an angel clad in wings! Many vassals bow before her as her carriage sweeps their doorways; She has blest their little children, as a priest or queen were she. Far too tender, or too cruel far, her smile upon the poor was, For I thought it was the same smile which she used to smile on me. I grew scornfuller, grew colder, as I stood up there among them, Till, as frost intense will burn you, the cold scorning scorched my brow; When a sudden silver speaking, gravely cadenced, overrung them, And a sudden silken stirring touched my inner nature through. I looked upward and beheld her! With a calm and regnant spirit, Slowly round she swept her eyelids, and said clear before them all, "Have you such superfluous honor, sir, that able to confer it, You will come down, Mr. Bertram, as my guest to Wycombe Hall?" Oh, the blessed woods of Sussex, I can hear them still around me, With their leafy tide of greenery still rippling up the wind! Oh, the cursed woods of Sussex! where the hunter's arrow found me, When a fair face and a tender voice had made me mad and blind! In that ancient hall of Wycombe, thronged the numerous guests invited, And the lovely London ladies trod the floors with gliding feet; And their voices low with fashion, not with feeling, softly freighted All the air about the windows, with elastic laughters sweet. For at eve, the open windows flung their light out on the terrace, Which the floating orbs of curtains did with gradual shadow sweep: While the swans upon the river, fed at morning by the heiress, Trembled downward through their snowy wings at music in their sleep. And there evermore was music, both of instrument and singing; Till the finches of the shrubberies grew restless in the dark; |