THE LAY OF THE LAST MINSTREL

[Publ. January, 1805]

Dum relego, scripsisse pudet; quia plurima cerno, Me quoque qui feci judice, digna lini.

TO THE

RIGHT HONORABLE

CHARLES, EARL OF DALKEITH,

THIS POEM IS INSCRIBED BY
THE AUTHOR

INTRODUCTION

THE way was long, the wind was cold,
The Minstrel was infirm and old;
His withered cheek and tresses gray
Seemed to have known a better day;
The harp, his sole remaining joy,
Was carried by an orphan boy.
The last of all the bards was he,
Who sung of Border chivalry;
For, well-a-day! their date was fled,
His tuneful brethren all were dead;
And he, neglected and oppressed,
Wished to be with them and at rest.
No more on prancing palfrey borne,
He carrolled, light as lark at morn;
No longer courted and caressed,
High placed in hall, a welcome guest,
He poured, to lord and lady gay,
The unpremeditated lay:

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Old times were changed, old manners

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And tuned, to please a peasant's ear,
The harp a king had loved to hear.
He passed where Newark's stately tower
Looks out from Yarrow's birchen bower:
The Minstrel gazed with wishful eye-
No humbler resting-place was nigh.
With hesitating step at last
The embattled portal arch he passed,
Whose ponderous grate and massy bar
Had oft rolled back the tide of war,
But never closed the iron door
Against the desolate and poor.
The Duchess marked his weary pace,
His timid mien, and reverend face,
And bade her page the menials tell
That they should tend the old man well: 40
For she had known adversity,
Though born in such a high degree;
In pride of power, in beauty's bloom,
Had wept o'er Monmouth's bloody tomb!

When kindness had his wants supplied,
And the old man was gratified,
Began to rise his minstrel pride;
And he began to talk anon

Of good Earl Francis, dead and gone,
And of Earl Walter, rest him God!
A braver ne'er to battle rode;
And how full many a tale he knew
Of the old warriors of Buccleuch:

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And would the noble Duchess deign
To listen to an old man's strain,
Though stiff his hand, his voice though
weak,

He thought even yet, the sooth to speak,
That, if she loved the harp to hear,

He could make music to her ear.

Came wildering o'er his aged brain
He tried to tune his harp in vain,
The pitying Duchess praised its chime,
And gave him heart, and gave him time,
Till every string's according glee
Was blended into harmony.

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And then, he said, he would full fain
He could recall an ancient strain
He never thought to sing again.
It was not framed for village churls,
But for high dames and mighty earls;
He had played it to King Charles the
Good

When he kept court in Holyrood;

And much he wished, yet feared, to try
The long-forgotten melody.

Amid the strings his fingers strayed,
And an uncertain warbling made,
And oft he shook his hoary head.

But when he caught the measure wild,
The old man raised his face and smiled;
And lightened up his faded eye
With all a poet's ecstasy!

In varying cadence, soft or strong,
He swept the sounding chords along:
The present scene, the future lot,
His toils, his wants, were all forgot;
Cold diffidence and age's frost
In the full tide of song were lost;
Each blank, in faithless memory void,
The poet's glowing thought supplied;
And, while his harp responsive rung,

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"T was thus the LATEST MINSTREL sung. 100

CANTO SIXTH

I

BREATHES there the man, with soul so dead,

Who never to himself hath said,

This is my own, my native land? Whose heart hath ne'er within him burned, As home his footsteps he hath turned

From wandering on a foreign strand? If such there breathe, go, mark him well; For him no minstrel raptures swell; High though his titles, proud his name, Boundless his wealth as wish can claim, Despite those titles, power, and pelf, The wretch, concentred all in self, Living, shall forfeit fair renown, And, doubly dying, shall go down

To the vile dust from whence he sprung, Unwept, unhonoured, and unsung.

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The spousal rites were ended soon;
'T was now the merry hour of noon,
And in the lofty arched hall
Was spread the gorgeous festival.
Steward and squire, with heedful haste,
Marshalled the rank of every guest;
Pages, with ready blade, were there,
The mighty meal to carve and share:
O'er capon, heron-shew, and crane,
And princely peacock's gilded train,
And o'er the boar-head, garnished brave,
And cygnet from Saint Mary's wave,
O'er ptarmigan and venison,

The priest had spoke his benison.
Then rose the riot and the din,
Above, beneath, without, within!
For, from the lofty balcony,

Rung trumpet, shalm, and psaltery:

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Their clanging bowls old warriors quaffed, Loudly they spoke and loudly laughed; 100 Whispered young knights, in tone more mild,

To ladies fair, and ladies smiled.

The hooded hawks, high perched on beam,

The clamor joined with whistling scream, And flapped their wings and shook their bells,

In concert with the stag-hounds' yells.
Round go the flasks of ruddy wine,
From Bordeaux, Orleans, or the Rhine;
Their tasks the busy sewers ply,
And all is mirth and revelry.

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VII

The Goblin Page, omitting still

No opportunity of ill,

Strove now, while blood ran hot and high,
To rouse debate and jealousy;
Till Conrad, Lord of Wolfenstein,
By nature fierce, and warm with wine,
And now in humor highly crossed
About some steeds his band had lost,
High words to words succeeding still,
Smote with his gauntlet stout Hunthill, 120
A hot and hardy Rutherford,

Whom men called Dickon Draw-the-Sword.
He took it on the page's saye,

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Hunthill had driven these steeds away.
Then Howard, Home, and Douglas rose,
The kindling discord to compose;
Stern Rutherford right little said,
But bit his glove and shook his head.
A fortnight thence, in Inglewood,
Stout Conrad, cold, and drenched in blood,
His bosom gored with many a wound,
Was by a woodman's lyme-dog found:
Unknown the manner of his death,
Gone was his brand, both sword and sheath;
But ever from that time, 't was said,
That Dickon wore a Cologne blade.

VIII

The dwarf, who feared his master's eye
Might his foul treachery espie,

Now sought the castle buttery,

Where many a yeoman, bold and free, 140
Revelled as merrily and well

As those that sat in lordly selle.
Watt Tinlinn there did frankly raise
The pledge to Arthur Fire-the-Braes;
And he, as by his breeding bound,
To Howard's merrymen sent it round.
To quit them, on the English side,
Red Roland Forster loudly cried,
'A deep carouse to yon fair bride!'
At every pledge, from vat and pail,
Foamed forth in floods the nut-brown ale,
While shout the riders every one;
Such day of mirth ne'er cheered their clan,
Since old Buccleuch the name did gain,
When in the cleuch the buck was ta'en.

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The wily page, with vengeful thought,
Remembered him of Tinlinn's yew,
And swore it should be dearly bought
That ever he the arrow drew.
First, he the yeoman did molest

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With bitter gibe and taunting jest;
Told how he fled at Solway strife,

And how Hob Armstrong cheered his wife;
Then, shunning still his powerful arm,
At unawares he wrought him harm;
From trencher stole his choicest cheer,
Dashed from his lips his can of beer;
Then, to his knee sly creeping on,
With bodkin pierced him to the bone:
The venomed wound and festering joint 170
Long after rued that bodkin's point.
The startled yeoman swore and spurned,
And board and flagons overturned.
Riot and clamor wild began;
Back to the hall the urchin ran,
Took in a darkling nook his post,

And grinned, and muttered, 'Lost! lost! lost!'