Scott's Lady of the Lake

In speech and gesture, form and face,
Show’d she was come of gentle race.
’Twere strange in ruder rank to find
Such looks, such manners, and such mind.
Each hint the Knight of Snowdoun gave,
Dame Margaret heard with silence grave;
Or Ellen, innocently gay,
Turn’d all inquiry light away: —
“Weird women we! by dale and down[77 - Hilly or undulating land.]
We dwell, afar from tower and town.
We stem the flood, we ride the blast,
On wandering knights our spells we cast;
While viewless minstrels touch the string,
’Tis thus our charmed rhymes we sing.”
She sung, and still a harp unseen
Fill’d up the symphony between.

XXXI

SONG

“Soldier, rest! thy warfare o’er,
Sleep the sleep that knows not breaking:
Dream of battled fields no more,
Days of danger, nights of waking.
In our isle’s enchanted hall,
Hands unseen thy couch are strewing,
Fairy strains of music fall,
Every sense in slumber dewing.[78 - Refreshing.]
Soldier, rest! thy warfare o’er,
Dream of fighting fields no more:
Sleep the sleep that knows not breaking,
Morn of toil, nor night of waking.
“No rude sound shall reach thine ear,
Armor’s clang, or war steed champing,
Trump nor pibroch[79 - The Highlanders’ battle air, played upon the bagpipes.] summon here
Mustering clan, or squadron tramping.
Yet the lark’s shrill fife may come
At the daybreak from the fallow,[80 - Untilled land.]
And the bittern[81 - A kind of heron said to utter a loud and peculiar booming note.] sound his drum,
Booming from the sedgy shallow.
Ruder sounds shall none be near,
Guards nor warders challenge here,
Here’s no war steed’s neigh and champing,
Shouting clans, or squadrons stamping.”

XXXII

She paused – then, blushing, led the lay
To grace the stranger of the day.
Her mellow notes awhile prolong
The cadence of the flowing song,
Till to her lips in measured frame
The minstrel verse spontaneous came.

SONG CONTINUED

“Huntsman, rest! thy chase is done;
While our slumbrous spells assail ye,
Dream not, with the rising sun,
Bugles here shall sound reveille.[82 - (Rē-vāl´yĕ.) The morning call to soldiers to arise.]
Sleep! the deer is in his den;
Sleep! thy hounds are by thee lying;
Sleep! nor dream in yonder glen,
How thy gallant steed lay dying.
Huntsman, rest! thy chase is done,
Think not of the rising sun,
For at dawning to assail ye,
Here no bugles sound reveille.”

XXXIII

The hall was clear’d – the stranger’s bed
Was there of mountain heather spread,
Where oft a hundred guests had lain,
And dream’d their forest sports again.
But vainly did the heath flower shed
Its moorland fragrance round his head;
Not Ellen’s spell had lull’d to rest
The fever of his troubled breast.
In broken dreams the image rose
Of varied perils, pains, and woes:
His steed now flounders in the brake,
Now sinks his barge upon the lake;
Now leader of a broken host,
His standard falls, his honor’s lost.
Then, – from my couch may heavenly might
Chase that worse phantom of the night! —
Again return’d the scenes of youth,
Of confident undoubting truth;
Again his soul he interchanged
With friends whose hearts were long estranged.
They come, in dim procession led,
The cold, the faithless, and the dead;
As warm each hand, each brow as gay,
As if they parted yesterday.
And doubt distracts him at the view —
Oh, were his senses false or true?
Dream’d he of death, or broken vow,
Or is it all a vision now?