The Complete Poems of Sir Walter Scott. Walter Scott
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Cambuskenneth’s fane,
If eve return him not again,
Am I to hie and make me known?
Alas! he goes to Scotland’s throne,
Buys his friends’ safety with his own;
He goes to do—what I had done,
Had Douglas’ daughter been his son!’
XI
‘Nay, lovely Ellen!—dearest, nay!
If aught should his return delay,
He only named yon holy fane
As fitting place to meet again.
Be sure he’s safe; and for the Graeme,—
Heaven’s blessing on his gallant name!—
My visioned sight may yet prove true,
Nor bode of ill to him or you.
When did my gifted dream beguile?
Think of the stranger at the isle,
And think upon the harpings slow
That presaged this approaching woe!
Sooth was my prophecy of fear;
Believe it when it augurs cheer.
Would we had left this dismal spot!
Ill luck still haunts a fairy spot!
Of such a wondrous tale I know—
Dear lady, change that look of woe,
My harp was wont thy grief to cheer.’
Ellen.
‘Well, be it as thou wilt;
I hear, But cannot stop the bursting tear.’
The Minstrel tried his simple art,
Rut distant far was Ellen’s heart.
XII
Ballad.
Alice Brand.
Merry it is in the good greenwood,
When the mavis and merle are singing,
When the deer sweeps by, and the hounds are in cry,
And the hunter’s horn is ringing.
‘O Alice Brand, my native land
Is lost for love of you;
And we must hold by wood and word,
As outlaws wont to do.
‘O Alice, ‘t was all for thy locks so bright,
And ‘t was all for thine eyes so blue,
That on the night of our luckless flight
Thy brother bold I slew.
‘Now must I teach to hew the beech
The hand that held the glaive,
For leaves to spread our lowly bed,
And stakes to fence our cave.
‘And for vest of pall, thy fingers small,
That wont on harp to stray,
A cloak must shear from the slaughtered deer,
To keep the cold away.’
‘O Richard! if my brother died,
‘T was but a fatal chance;
For darkling was the battle tried,
And fortune sped the lance.
‘If pall and vair no more I wear,
Nor thou the crimson sheen
As warm, we’ll say, is the russet gray,
As gay the forest-green.
‘And, Richard, if our lot be hard,
And lost thy native land,
Still Alice has her own Richard,
And he his Alice Brand.’
XIII
Ballad Continued.
‘tis merry, ‘tis merry, in good greenwood;
So blithe Lady Alice is singing;
On the beech’s pride, and oak’s brown side,
Lord Richard’s axe is ringing.
Up spoke the moody Elfin King,
Who woned within the hill,—
Like wind in the porch of a ruined church,
His voice was ghostly shrill.
‘Why sounds yon stroke on beech and oak,
Our moonlight circle’s screen?
Or who comes here to chase the deer,
Beloved of our Elfin Queen?
Or who may dare on wold to wear
The fairies’ fatal green?
‘Up, Urgan, up! to yon mortal hie,
For thou wert christened man;
For cross or sign thou wilt not fly,
For muttered word or ban.
‘Lay on him the curse of the withered heart,
The curse of the sleepless eye;
Till he wish and pray that his life would part,
Nor yet find leave to die.’
XIV
Ballad Continued.
‘Tis merry, ‘tis merry, in good greenwood,
Though the birds have stilled their singing;
The evening blaze cloth Alice raise,
And Richard is fagots bringing.
Up Urgan starts, that hideous dwarf,
Before Lord Richard stands,
And, as he crossed and blessed himself,
‘I fear not sign,’ quoth the grisly elf,
‘That is made with bloody hands.’
But out then spoke she, Alice Brand,
That woman void of fear,—
‘And if there ‘s blood upon his hand,
‘Tis but the blood of deer.’
‘Now loud thou liest, thou bold of mood!
It cleaves unto his hand,
The stain of thine own kindly blood,
The blood of Ethert Brand.’
Then forward stepped she, Alice Brand,
And made the holy sign,—
‘And if there’s blood on Richard’s hand,
A spotless hand is mine.
‘And I conjure thee, demon elf,
By Him whom demons fear,
To show us whence thou art thyself,
And what thine errand here?’
XV
Ballad Continued.
“Tis merry, ‘tis merry, in Fairyland,
When fairy birds are singing,
When the court cloth ride by their monarch’s side,
With bit and bridle ringing:
‘And gayly shines the Fairyland—
But all is glistening show,
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