Imatges de pàgina
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For mass or prayer can I rarely tarry,
Save to patter an Ave Mary,

When I ride on a Border foray.

Other prayer can I none;

So speed me my errand, and let me be gone.”—

VII.

Again on the Knight look'd the Churchman old,
And again he sighed heavily;

For he had himself been a warrior bold,

And fought in Spain and Italy.

And he thought on the days that were long since by, When his limbs were strong, and his courage was high :

Now, slow and faint, he led the way,

Where, cloister'd round, the garden lay;
The pillar'd arches were over their head,

And beneath their feet were the bones of the dead.

VIII.

Spreading herbs, and flowerets bright,
Glisten'd with the dew of night;

Nor herb, nor floweret, glisten'd there,
But was carved in the cloister-arches as fair.
The Monk gazed long on the lovely moon.
Then into the night he looked forth;
And red and bright the streamers light
Were dancing in the glowing north.
So had he seen, in fair Castile,

The youth in glittering squadrons start;
Sudden the flying jennet wheel,

And hurl the unexpected dart.

He knew, by the streamers that shot so bright,
That spirits were riding the northern light.

IX.

By a steel-clenched postern door,

They enter'd now the chancel tall;

The darken'd roof rose high aloof

On pillars lofty and light and small:

The key-stone, that lock'd each ribbed aisle,

Was a fleur-de-lys, or a quatre-feuille;

.

The corbells were carved grotesque and grim;
And the pillars, with cluster'd shafts so trim,
With base and with capital flourish'd around,

Seem'd bundles of lances which garlands had bound.

X.

Full many a scutcheon and banner riven,
Shook to the cold night-wind of heaven,
Around the screened altar's pale;
And there the dying lamps did burn,
Before thy low and lonely urn,

a Corbells, the projections from which the arches spring, usually cut in a fantastic face, or mask.

O gallant chief of Otterburne! 12

And thine, dark Knight of Liddesdale! 13 O fading honours of the dead!

O high ambition, lowly laid!

XI.

The moon on the east oriel shone
Through slender shafts of shapely stone,
By foliaged tracery combined;

Thou would'st have thought some fairy's hand
"Twixt poplars straight the ozier wand,

In many a freakish knot, had twined;
Then framed a spell, when the work was done,
And changed the willow wreaths to stone.
The silver light, so pale and faint,
Show'd many a prophet, and many a saint,
Whose image on the glass was dyed;
Full in the midst, his Cross of Red
Triumphant Michael brandished,

And trampled the Apostate's pride.

The moonbeam kiss'd the holy pane,

And threw on the pavement a bloody stain.

XII.

They sate them down on a marble stone,
(A Scottish monarch slept below ;)
Thus spoke the Monk, in solemn tone:--
"I was not always a man of woe;
For Paynim countries I have trod,
And fought beneath the cross of God:

Now, strange to my eyes thine arms appear,
And their iron clang sounds strange to my ear.

XIII.

"In these far climes it was my lot

To meet the wondrous Michael Scott; 14
A wizard, of such dreaded fame,

That when, in Salamanca's cave,
Him listed his magic wand to wave,

The bells would ring in Notre Dame!
Some of his skill he taught to me';
And, Warrior, I could say to thee

The words that cleft Eildon hills in three,15

And bridled the Tweed with a curb of stone:

But to speak them were a deadly sin;

And for having but thought them my heart within, A treble penance must be done.

XIV.

"When Michael lay on his dying bed,
His conscience was awakened:
He bethought him of his sinful deed,
And he gave me a sign to come with speed
I was in Spain when the morning rose,
But I stood by his bed ere evening close.

The words may not again be said,
That he spoke to me, on death-bed laid;
They would rend this Abbaye's massy nave,
And pile it in heaps above his grave.

XV.

"I swore to bury his Mighty Book,
That never mortal might therein look;
And never to tell where it was hid,
Save at his Chief of Branksome's need:
And when that need was past and o'er,
Again the volume to restore.

I buried him on St Michael's night,

When the bell toll'd one, and the moon was bright,
And I dug his chamber among the dead,

When the floor of the chancel was stained red,
That his patron's cross might over him wave,
And scare the fiends from the Wizard's grave.

XVI.

"It was a night of woe and dread,

When Michael in the tomb I laid!

Strange sounds along the chancel pass'd,

The banners waved without a blast"

-Still spoke the Monk, when the bell toll'd one!—

I tell you, that a braver man

Than William of Deloraine, good at need,

Against a foe ne'er spurr'd a steed;

Yet somewhat was he chill'd with dread,
And his hair did bristle upon his head.

XVII.

"Lo, Warrior! now the Cross of Red
Points to the grave of the mighty dead;
Within it burns a wonderous light,
To chase the spirits that love the night.
That lamp shall burn unquenchably,
Until the eternal doom shall be."-

Slow moved the Monk to the broad flag-stone,

Which the bloody Cross was traced upon:

He pointed to a secret nook;

An iron-bar the Warrior took;

And the Monk made a sign with his wither'd

hand,

The grave's huge portal to expand.

XVIII.

With beating heart to the task he went;

His sinewy frame o'er the grave-stone bent;

With bar of iron heaved amain,

Till the toil-drops fell from his brows, like rain.
It was by dint of passing strength,

That he moved the massy stone at length.
I would you had been there, to see

How the light broke forth so gloriously,

Stream'd upward to the chancel roof,
And through the galleries far aloof!
No earthly flame blazed e'er so bright:
It shone like heaven's own blessed light,
And, issuing from the tomb,

Show'd the Monk's cowl, and visage pale,
Danced on the dark-brow'd Warrior's mail,
And kiss'd his waving plume.

XIX.

Before their eyes the Wizard lay,
As if he had not been dead a day.
His hoary beard in silver roll'd,
He seem'd some seventy winters old;
A palmer's amice wrapp'd him round,
With a wrought Spanish baldric bound,
Like a pilgrim from beyond the sea:
His left hand held his Book of Might;
A silver cross was in his right;

The lamp was placed beside his knee :
High and majestic was his look,
At which the fellest fiend had shook,
And all unruffled was his face:

They trusted his soul had gotten grace.

XX.

Often had William of Deloraine
Rode through the battle's bloody plain,
And trampled down the warriors slain,
And neither known remorse nor awe;
Yet now remorse and awe he own'd;
His breath came thick, his head swam round,
When this strange scene of death he saw,
Bewilder'd and unnerv'd he stood,

And the priest pray'd fervently and loud:
With eyes averted prayed he;

He might not endure the sight to see,

Of the man he had loved so brotherly.

XXI.

And when the priest his death-prayer had pray'd,

Thus unto Deloraine he said:

"Now, speed thee what thou hast to do,

Or, Warrior, we may dearly rue;

For those, thou may'st not look upon,

Are gathering fast round the yawning stone!"

Then, Deloraine, in terror, took

From the cold hand the Mighty Book,

With iron clasp'd, and with iron bound:

He thought, as he took it, the dead man frown'd;

But the glare of the sepulchral light,

Perchance, had dazzled the warrior's sight.

XXII.

When the huge stone sunk o'er the tomb,
The night return'd in double gloom;

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For the moon had gone down, and the stars were few;
And, as the Knight and Priest withdrew,
With wavering steps and dizzy brain,
They hardly might the postern gain.
"Tis said, as through the aisles they pass'd,
They heard strange noises on the blast;
And through the cloister-galleries small,
Which at mid-height thread the chancel wall,
Loud sobs, and laughter louder, ran,
And voices unlike the voice of man;
As if the fiends kept holiday,

Because these spells were brought to day.

I cannot tell how the truth may be;

I say the tale as 'twas said to me.

XXIII.

"Now, hie thee hence," the Father said,
"And when we are on death-bed laid,

O may our dear Ladye, and sweet St John,
Forgive our souls for the deed we have done!"
The Monk return'd him to his cell,

And many a prayer and penance sped;
When the convent met at the noontide bell-
The Monk of St Mary's aisle was dead!

Before the cross was the body laid,

With hands clasp'd fast, as if still he pray'd

XXIV.

The Knight breathed free in the morning wind,

And strove his hardihood to find:

He was glad when he pass'd the tombstones grey,
Which girdle round the fair Abbaye;

For the mystic Book, to his bosom prest,

Felt like a load upon his breast;

And his joints, with nerves of iron twin'd,
Shook, like the aspen leaves in wind.
Full fain was he when the dawn of day
Began to brighten Cheviot grey;
He joy'd to see the cheerful light,

And he said Ave Mary, as well as he might.

XXV.

The sun had brighten'd Cheviot grey,

The sun had brighten'd the Carter's" side;

And soon beneath the rising day

Smiled Branksome towers and Teviot's tide.

The wild birds told their warbling tale,

And waken'd every flower that blows;

And peeped forth the violet pale,

And spread her breast the mountain rose.

And lovelier than the rose so red,
Yet paler than the violet pale,
She early left her sleepless bed,
The fairest maid of Teviotdale.

A mountain on the Border of England, above Jedburgh.

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