Marmion

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