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Thence oft he mark’d fierce Pentland rave,

       As if grim Odin rode her wave:

       And watch’d the while, with visage pale,

       And throbbing heart, the struggling sail;

       For all of wonderful and wild

       Had rapture for the lonely child.

       XXII

      And much of wild and wonderful

       In these rude isles might fancy cull;

       For thither came. in times afar,

       Stern Lochlin’s sons of roving war.

       The Norsemen, train’d to spoil and blood,

       Skill’d to prepare the raven’s food;

       Kings of the main their leaders brave,

       Their barks the dragons of the wave.

       And there in many a stormy vale,

       The Scald had told his wondrous tale;

       And many a Runic column high

       Had witness’d grim idolatry.

       And thus had Harold in his youth

       Learn’d many a Saga’s rhyme uncouth,

       Of that Sea-Snake, tremendous curl’d,

       Whose monstrous circle girds the world;

       Of those dread Maids, whose hideous yell

       Maddens the battle’s bloody swell;

       Of Chief, who, guided through the gloom

       By the pale death-lights of the tomb,

       Ransack’d the graves of warriors old,

       Their falchions wrench’d from corpses’ hold,

       Wak’d the deaf tomb with war’s alarms,

       And bade the dead arise to arms!

       With war and wonder all on flame,

       To Roslin’s bowers young Harold came,

       Where, by sweet glen and greenwood tree,

       He learn’d a milder minstrelsy;

       Yet something of the Northern spell

       Mix’d with the softer numbers well.

       XXIII

      Harold

       O listen, listen, ladies gay!

       No haughty feat of arms I tell;

       Soft is the note, and sad the lay,

       That mourns the lovely Rosabelle.

       “Moor, moor the barge, ye gallant crew!

       And gentle ladye, deign to stay!

       Rest thee in Castle Ravensheuch,

       Nor tempt the stormy firth to-day.

       “The blackening wave is edg’d with white:

       To inch and rock the sea-mews fly;

       The fishers have heard the Water-Sprite,

       Whose screams forebode that wreck is nigh.

       “Last night the gifted Seer did view

       A wet shroud swathed round ladye gay;

       Then stay thee, Fair, in Ravensheuch:

       Why cross the gloomy firth today?”

       “‘Tis not because Lord Lindesay’s heir

       Tonight at Roslin leads the ball,

       But that my ladye-mother there

       Sits lonely in her castle-hall.

       “‘Tis not because the ring they ride,

       And Lindesay at the ring rides well,

       But that my sire the wine will chide,

       If ‘tis not fill’d by Rosabelle.”

       O’er Roslin all that dreary night

       A wondrous blaze was seen to gleam;

       ‘Twas broader than the watchfire’s light,

       And redder than the bright moonbeam.

       It glar’d on Roslin’s castled rock,

       It ruddied all the copse wood glen;

       ‘Twas seen from Dryden’s groves of oak

       And seen from cavern’d Hawthornden.

       Seem’d all on fire that chapel proud,

       Where Roslin’s chiefs uncoffin’d lie,

       Each Baron, for a sable shroud,

       Sheath’d in his iron panoply.

       Seem’d all on fire within, around,

       Deep sacristy and altar s pale;

       Shone every plllar foliage bound,

       And glimmer’d all the dead men’s mail.

       Blaz’d battlement and pinnet high,

       Blaz’d every rose-carved buttress fair,

       So still they blaze when fate is nigh

       The lordly line of high St. Clair.

       There are twenty of Roslin’s barons bold

       Lie buried within that proud chapelle;

       Each one the holy vault doth hold,

       But the sea holds lovely Rosabelle!

       And each St. Clair was buried there,

       With candle, with book, and with knell;

       But the sea-caves rung, and the wild winds sung

       The dirge of lovely Rosabelle.

       XXIV

      So sweet was Harold’s piteous lay,

       Scarce mark’d the guests the darken’d hall,

       Though, long before the sinking day,

       A wondrous shade involv’d them all:

       It was not eddying mist or fog,

       Drain’d by the sun from fen or bog;

       Of no eclipse had sages told;

       And yet, as it came on apace,

       Each one could scarce his neighbour’s face,

       Could scarce his own stretch’d hand behold.

       A secret horror check’d the feast,

       And chill’d the soul of every guest;

       Even the high Dame stood half aghast,

       She knew some evil on the blast;

       The elvish page fell to the ground,

       And, shuddering, mutter’d, “Found! found! found!”

       XXV

      Then sudden,through the darken’d air,

       A flash of lightning came;

       So broad, so bright, so red the glare,

       The castle seem’d on flame.

       Glanc’d every rafter of the hall,

       Glanc’d every shield upon the wall;

       Each trophied beam, each sculptur’d stone,

       Were instant seen, and instant gone;

       Full through the guests’ bedazzled band

       Resistless flash’d the levin-brand,

       And fill’d the hall with smoldering smoke,

       As

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