Marmion - Introduction to Canto Second

TO THE REV JOHN MARRIOTT, A. M.

Ashestiel, Ettrick Forest.

The scenes are desert now, and bare
Where flourish’d once a forest fair,
When these waste glens with copse were lined,
And peopled with the hart and hind.
Yon Thorn-perchance whose prickly spears 5
Have fenced him for three hundred years,
While fell around his green compeers-
Yon lonely Thorn, would he could tell
The changes of his parent dell,
Since he, so grey and stubborn now, 10
Waved in each breeze a sapling bough;
Would he could tell how deep the shade
A thousand mingled branches made;
How broad the shadows of the oak,
How clung the rowan to the rock, 15
And through the foliage show’d his head,
With narrow leaves and berries red;
What pines on every mountain sprung,
O’er every dell what birches hung,
In every breeze what aspens shook, 20
What alders shaded every brook!

‘Here, in my shade,’ methinks he’d say,
‘The mighty stag at noon-tide lay:
The wolf I’ve seen, a fiercer game,
(The neighbouring dingle bears his name,) 25
With lurching step around me prowl,
And stop, against the moon to howl;
The mountain-boar, on battle set,
His tusks upon my stem would whet;
While doe, and roe, and red-deer good, 30
Have bounded by, through gay green-wood.
Then oft, from Newark’s riven tower,
Sallied a Scottish monarch’s power:
A thousand vassals muster’d round,
With horse, and hawk, and horn, and hound; 35
And I might see the youth intent,
Guard every pass with crossbow bent;
And through the brake the rangers stalk,
And falc’ners hold the ready hawk,
And foresters, in green-wood trim, 40
Lead in the leash the gazehounds grim,
Attentive, as the bratchet’s bay
From the dark covert drove the prey,
To slip them as he broke away.
The startled quarry bounds amain, 45
As fast the gallant greyhounds strain;
Whistles the arrow from the bow,
Answers the harquebuss below;
While all the rocking hills reply,
To hoof-clang, hound, and hunters’ cry, 50
And bugles ringing lightsomely.’

Of such proud huntings, many tales
Yet linger in our lonely dales,
Up pathless Ettrick and on Yarrow,
Where erst the outlaw drew his arrow. 55
But not more blithe that silvan court,
Than we have been at humbler sport;
Though small our pomp, and mean our game,
Our mirth, dear Marriott, was the same.
Remember’st thou my greyhounds true? 60
O’er holt or hill there never flew,
From slip or leash there never sprang,
More fleet of foot, or sure of fang.
Nor dull, between each merry chase,
Pass’d by the intermitted space; 65
For we had fair resource in store,
In Classic and in Gothic lore:
We mark’d each memorable scene,
And held poetic talk between;
Nor hill, nor brook, we paced along, 70
But had its legend or its song.
All silent now-for now are still
Thy bowers, untenanted Bowhill!
No longer, from thy mountains dun,
The yeoman hears the well-known gun, 75
And while his honest heart glows warm,
At thought of his paternal farm,
Round to his mates a brimmer fills,
And drinks, ‘The Chieftain of the Hills!’
No fairy forms, in Yarrow’s bowers, 80
Trip o’er the walks, or tend the flowers,
Fair as the elves whom Janet saw
By moonlight dance on Carterhaugh;
No youthful Baron’s left to grace
The Forest-Sheriff’s lonely chase, 85
And ape, in manly step and tone,
The majesty of Oberon:
And she is gone, whose lovely face
Is but her least and lowest grace;
Though if to Sylphid Queen ‘twere given, 90
To show our earth the charms of Heaven,
She could not glide along the air,
With form more light, or face more fair.
No more the widow’s deafen’d ear
Grows quick that lady’s step to hear: 95
At noontide she expects her not,
Nor busies her to trim the cot;
Pensive she turns her humming wheel,
Or pensive cooks her orphans’ meal,
Yet blesses, ere she deals their bread, 100
The gentle hand by which they’re fed.

From Yair,-which hills so closely bind,
Scarce can the Tweed his passage find,
Though much he fret, and chafe, and toil,
Till all his eddying currents boil,- 105
Her long descended lord is gone,
And left us by the stream alone.
And much I miss those sportive boys,
Companions of my mountain joys,
Just at the age ‘twixt boy and youth, 110
When thought is speech, and speech is truth.
Close to my side, with what delight
They press’d to hear of Wallace wight,
When, pointing to his airy mound,
I call’d his ramparts holy ground! 115
Kindled their brows to hear me speak;
And I have smiled, to feel my cheek,
Despite the difference of our years,
Return again the glow of theirs.
Ah, happy boys! such feelings pure, 120
They will not, cannot long endure;
Condemn’d to stem the world’s rude tide,
You may not linger by the side;
For Fate shall thrust you from the shore,
And passion ply the sail and oar. 125
Yet cherish the remembrance still,
Of the lone mountain, and the rill;
For trust, dear boys, the time will come,
When fiercer transport shall be dumb,
And you will think right frequently, 130
But, well I hope, without a sigh,
On the free hours that we have spent,
Together, on the brown hill’s bent.

When, musing on companions gone,
We doubly feel ourselves alone, 135
Something, my friend, we yet may gain,
There is a pleasure in this pain:
It soothes the love of lonely rest,
Deep in each gentler heart impress’d.
‘Tis silent amid worldly toils, 140
And stifled soon by mental broils;
But, in a bosom thus prepared,
Its still small voice is often heard,
Whispering a mingled sentiment,
‘Twixt resignation and content. 145
Oft in my mind such thoughts awake,
By lone Saint Mary’s silent lake;
Thou know’st it well,-nor fen, nor sedge,
Pollute the pure lake’s crystal edge;
Abrupt and sheer, the mountains sink 150
At once upon the level brink;
And just a trace of silver sand
Marks where the water meets the land.
Far in the mirror, bright and blue,
Each hill’s huge outline you may view; 155
Shaggy with heath, but lonely bare,
Nor tree, nor bush, nor brake, is there,
Save where, of land, yon slender line
Bears thwart the lake the scatter’d pine.
Yet even this nakedness has power, 160
And aids the feeling of the hour:
Nor thicket, dell, nor copse you spy,
Where living thing conceal’d might lie;
Nor point, retiring, hides a dell,
Where swain, or woodman lone, might dwell; 165
There’s nothing left to fancy’s guess,
You see that all is loneliness:
And silence aids-though the steep hills
Send to the lake a thousand rills;
In summer tide, so soft they weep, 170
The sound but lulls the ear asleep;
Your horse’s hoof-tread sounds too rude,
So stilly is the solitude.

Nought living meets the eye or ear,
But well I ween the dead are near; 175
For though, in feudal strife, a foe
Hath laid Our Lady’s chapel low,
Yet still, beneath the hallow’d soil,
The peasant rests him from his toil,
And, dying, bids his bones be laid, 180
Where erst his simple fathers pray’d.

If age had tamed the passions’ strife,
And fate had cut my ties to life,
Here have I thought, ‘twere sweet to dwell,
And rear again the chaplain’s cell, 185
Like that same peaceful hermitage,
Where Milton long’d to spend his age.
‘Twere sweet to mark the setting day,
On Bourhope’s lonely top decay;
And, as it faint and feeble died 190
On the broad lake, and mountain’s side,
To say, ‘Thus pleasures fade away;
Youth, talents, beauty thus decay,
And leave us dark, forlorn, and grey;’
Then gaze on Dryhope’s ruin’d tower, 195
And think on Yarrow’s faded Flower:
And when that mountain-sound I heard,
Which bids us be for storm prepared,
The distant rustling of his wings,
As up his force the Tempest brings, 200
‘Twere sweet, ere yet his terrors rave,
To sit upon the Wizard’s grave;
That Wizard Priest’s, whose bones are thrust,
From company of holy dust;
On which no sunbeam ever shines- 205
(So superstition’s creed divines)-
Thence view the lake, with sullen roar,
Heave her broad billows to the shore;
And mark the wild-swans mount the gale,
Spread wide through mist their snowy sail, 210
And ever stoop again, to lave
Their bosoms on the surging wave;
Then, when against the driving hail
No longer might my plaid avail,
Back to my lonely home retire, 215
And light my lamp, and trim my fire;
There ponder o’er some mystic lay,
Till the wild tale had all its sway,
And, in the bittern’s distant shriek,
I heard unearthly voices speak, 220
And thought the Wizard Priest was come,
To claim again his ancient home!
And bade my busy fancy range,
To frame him fitting shape and strange,
Till from the task my brow I clear’d, 225
And smiled to think that I had fear’d.

But chief, ‘twere sweet to think such life,
(Though but escape from fortune’s strife,)
Something most matchless good and wise,
A great and grateful sacrifice; 230
And deem each hour, to musing given,
A step upon the road to heaven.

Yet him, whose heart is ill at ease,
Such peaceful solitudes displease;
He loves to drown his bosom’s jar 235
Amid the elemental war:
And my black Palmer’s choice had been
Some ruder and more savage scene,
Like that which frowns round dark Loch-skene.
There eagles scream from isle to shore; 240
Down all the rocks the torrents roar;
O’er the black waves incessant driven,
Dark mists infect the summer heaven;
Through the rude barriers of the lake,
Away its hurrying waters break, 245
Faster and whiter dash and curl,
Till down yon dark abyss they hurl.
Rises the fog-smoke white as snow,
Thunders the viewless stream below,
Diving, as if condemn’d to lave 250
Some demon’s subterranean cave,
Who, prison’d by enchanter’s spell,
Shakes the dark rock with groan and yell.
And well that Palmer’s form and mien
Had suited with the stormy scene, 255
Just on the edge, straining his ken
To view the bottom of the den,
Where, deep deep down, and far within,
Toils with the rocks the roaring linn;
Then, issuing forth one foamy wave, 260
And wheeling round the Giant’s Grave,
White as the snowy charger’s tail,
Drives down the pass of Moffatdale.

Marriott, thy harp, on Isis strung,
To many a Border theme has rung: 265
Then list to me, and thou shalt know
Of this mysterious Man of Woe.