Lyrical and Miscellaneous Pieces, IN THE ORDER OF THEIR COMPOSITION OR PUBLICATION. In awful ruins Ætna thunders nigh, At other times huge balls of fire are toss'd, Loud o'er my head though awful thunders roll, On the Setting Sun. 1783. THOSE evening clouds, that setting ray, Their great Creator's praise; To Him his homage raise. We often praise the evening clouds, Minstrelsy, 1810, were written in 1797, on occasion of the Poet's disappointment in love. The violet in her green-wood bower, Though fair her gems of azure hue, More sweet through wat'ry lustre shining. The summer sun that dew shall dry, To a Lady. WITH FLOWERS FROM A ROMAN WALL, 1797. WRITTEN in 1797, on an excursion from Gillsland, in Cumberland. See Life, vol. i. p. 365. Take these flowers which, purple waving, Warriors from the breach of danger Fragments. (1.) BOTHWELL CASTLE. 1799. THE following fragment of a ballad written at Bothwell Castle, in the autumn of 1799, was first printed in the Life of Sir Walter Scott, vol. ii. p. 28. When fruitful Clydesdale's apple-bowers 1 Sir Aylmer de Valence, Earl of Pembroke, Edward the First's Governor of Scotland, usually resided at Bothwell Cas When Clyde, despite his sheltering wood, Must leave his channel dry; If chance by Bothwell's lovely braes Or hid thee from the summer's blaze Full where the copsewood opens wild And many a tale of love and fear O, if with rugged minstrel lays Then all beneath the spreading beech, Flung careless on the lea, The Gothic muse the tale shall teach Of Bothwell's sisters three. Wight Wallace stood on Deckmont head, St. George's cross, o'er Bothwell hung, And rising at the bugle blast Tall in the midst Sir Aylmer1 rose, Proud Pembroke's Earl was heWhile" (2.) THE SHEPHERD'S TALE 1799. "ANOTHER imperfect ballad, in which he had meant to blend together two legends familiar to tle, the ruins of which attest the magnificence of the invader -ED. 2 Life of Scott, vol. ii. p. 31. 1 Lourd; i. e. liefer rather. "Forget not thou thy people's groans "O, in fell Clavers' hour of pride, As bold he strides through conquest's tide, "His widow and his little ones, "Sweet prayers to me," a voice replied, An aged man, in amice brown, From each stiff finger, stretch'd upright, That waved not in the blast of night O, deadly blue was that taper's hue, But more deadly blue was the ghastly hue Of his eyes who the taper bore. He laid on his head a hand like lead, As heavy, pale, and cold"Vengeance be thine, thou guest of mine, If thy heart be firm and bold. "But if faint thy heart, and caitiff fear The mountain erne thy heart shall tear, The wanderer raised him undismay'd: "My soul, by dangers steel'd, Is stubborn as my border blade, Which never knew to yield. "And if thy power can speed the hour Of vengeance on my foes, Theirs be the fate, from bridge and gate To feed the hooded crows." The Brownie look'd him in the face, "I fear me," quoth he, "uneath it will be To match thy word and deed. stated to have been extracted from a manuscript Chronicle of Nicolaus Thomann, chaplain to Saint Leonard in Weisenhorn, which bears the date 1533; and the song is stated by the author to have been generally sung in the neighborhood at that early period. Thomann, as quoted by the German Editor, seems faithfully to have believed the event he narrates. He quotes tombstones and obituaries to prove the existence of the personages of the ballad, and discovers that there actually died, on the 11th May, 1349, a Lady Von Neuffen, Countess of Marstetten, who was, by birth, of the house Out spoke the noble Moringer, "Of that have thou III. Then out and spoke that Lady bright, sore troubled in her cheer, "Now tell me true, thou noble knight, what order takest thou here; And who shall lead thy vassal band, and hold thy lordly sway, And be thy lady's guardian true when thou art far away?" IV.. of Moringer. This lady he supposes to have been Moringer's daughter, mentioned in the ballad. He quotes the same authority for the death of Berckhold Von Neuffen, in the same year. The editors, on the whole, seem to embrace the opinion of Professor Smith of Ulm, who, from the language of the ballad, ascribes its date to the 15th century. The legend itself turns on an incident not peculiar to Germany, and which, perhaps, was not unlikely to happen in more instances than one, when crusaders abode long in the Holy Land, and their disconsolate dames received no tidings of their fate. A story, very similar in circumstances, but without the miraculous machinery of Saint Thomas, is told of one of the ancient Lords of Haigh-hall in Lancashire, the patrimonial inheritance of the late Countess of Balcarras; and the particulars are represented on stained glass upon a window in that ancient manor-house.1 THE NOBLE MORINGER. I. O, WILL you hear a knightly tale of old Bohemian day, He dipp'd his hand in water cold, and bathed his forehead fair. 1 See Introduction to "The Betrothed," Waverley Novels, vol. xxxvii I'll pledge me for no lady's truth beyond the seventh fair day." |