Rosabelle

ROSABELLE

From "The Lay of the Last Minstrel"

O LISTEN, listen, ladies gay!

No haughty feat of arms I tell;
Soft is the note, and sad the lay,
That mourns the lovely Rosabelle.

"Moor, moor the barge, ye gallant crew!
And, gentle Lady, deign to stay!
Rest thee in Castle Ravensheuch,
Nor tempt the stormy firth to-day.

"The blackening wave is edged with white;
To inch and rock the sea-mews fly:
The fishers have heard the Water-Sprite,
Whose screams forebode that wreck is nigh.

"Last night the gifted Seer did view

A wet shroud swathed round lady gay;
Then stay thee, Fair, in Ravensheuch;
Why cross the gloomy firth to-day?"

""Tis not because Lord Lindesay's heir
To-night at Roslin leads the ball,
But that my lady-mother there
Sits lonely in her castle-hall.

""Tis not because the ring they ride,
And Lindesay at the ring rides well,
But that my sire the wine will chide
If 'tis not filled by Rosabelle.”

O'er Roslin all that dreary night

A wondrous blaze was seen to gleam; 'Twas broader than the watch-fire's light, And redder than the bright moonbeam.

It glared on Roslin's castled rock,

It ruddied all the copse-wood glen;
'Twas seen from Dryden's groves of oak,

And seen from caverned Hawthornden.

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Seemed all on fire that chapel proud
Where Roslin's chiefs uncoffined lie,
Each Baron, for a sable shroud,
Sheathed in his iron panoply.

Seemed all on fire within, around,
Deep sacristy and altar's pale;
Shone every pillar foliage-bound,

And glimmered all the dead men's mail.

Blazed battlement and pinnet high,
Blazed every rose-carved buttress fair,-
So still they blaze, when fate is nigh
The lordly line of high Saint Clair.

There are twenty of Roslin's barons bold
Lie buried within that proud chapelle;
Each one the holy vault doth hold,→

But the sea holds lovely Rosabelle!

And each Saint Clair was buried there
With candle, with book, and with knell;
But the sea-caves rung, and the wild winds sung
The dirge of lovely Rosabelle!

Walter Scott [1771-1832)

ALICE BRAND

From "The Lady of the Lake"

I

MERRY it is in the good greenwood,

When the mavis and merle are singing,

When the deer sweeps by, and the hounds are in cry, And the hunter's horn is ringing.

"O Alice Brand, my native land
Is lost for love of you;

And we must hold by wood and wold,
As outlaws wont to do.

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Alice Brand

"O Alice, 'twas all for thy locks so bright,
And 'twas all for thine eyes so blue,
That on the night of our luckless flight,
Thy brother bold I slew.

"Now must I teach to hew the beech
The hand that held the glaive,
For leaves to spread our lowly bed,
And stakes to fence our cave.

"And for vest of pall, thy fingers small,

That wont on harp to stray,

A cloak must shear from the slaughtered deer,
To keep the cold away."

"O Richard! if my brother died,
'Twas but a fatal chance;
For darkling was the battle tried,
And fortune sped the lance.

"If pall and vair no more I wear,
Nor thou the crimson sheen,
As warm, we'll say, is the russet gray,
As gay the forest green.

"And, Richard, if our lot be hard,

And lost thy native land, Still Alice has her own Richard, And he his Alice Brand."

II

"Tis merry, 'tis merry, in good greenwood,
So blithe Lady Alice is singing;

On the beech's pride, and oak's brown side,
Lord Richard's ax is ringing.

Up spoke the moody Elfin King,

Who woned within the hill,

Like wind in the porch of a ruined church,
His voice was ghostly shrill.

"Why sounds yon stroke on beech and oak, Our moonlight circle's screen?

Or who comes here to chase the deer,
Beloved of our Elfin Queen?

Or who may dare on wold to wear
The fairies' fatal green?

"Up, Urgan, up! to yon mortal hie,
For thou wert christened man;
For cross or sign thou wilt not fly,
For muttered word or ban.

"Lay on him the curse of the withered heart, The curse of the sleepless eye;

Till he wish and pray that his life would part, Nor yet find leave to die!"

III

'Tis merry, 'tis merry, in good greenwood, Though the birds have stilled their singing; The evening blaze doth Alice raise, `

And Richard is fagots bringing.

Up Urgan starts, that hideous dwarf,
Before Lord Richard stands,
And, as he crossed and blessed himself,
"I fear not sign," quoth the grisly elf,

"That is made with bloody hands."

But out then spoke she, Alice Brand,
That woman void of fear,—
"And if there's blood upon his hand,
'Tis but the blood of deer."

"Now loud thou liest, thou bold of mood!

It cleaves unto his hand,

The stain of thine own kindly blood,
The blood of Ethert Brand."

Alice Brand

Then forward stepped she, Alice Brand,
And made the holy sign,--

"And if there's blood on Richard's hand,
A spotless hand is mine.

"And I conjure thee, Demon elf,
By Him whom Demons fear,
To show us whence thou art thyself,
And what thine errand here?"

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IV

""Tis merry, 'tis merry, in Fairy-land,

When fairy birds are singing,

When the court doth ride by the monarch's side, With bit and bridle ringing.

"And gaily shines the Fairy-land

But all is glistening show,

Like the idle gleam that December's beam

Can dart on ice and snow.

"And fading, like that varied gleam,
Is our inconstant shape,

Who now like knight and lady seem,
And now like dwarf and ape.

"It was between the night and day,
When the Fairy King has power,

That I sunk down in a sinful fray,

And, 'twixt life and death, was snatched away
To the joyless Elfin bower.

"But wist I of a woman bold,

Who thrice my brow durst sign,

I might regain my mortal mold,

As fair a form as thine."

She crossed him once-she crossed him twice-

That lady was so brave;

The fouler grew his goblin hue,

The darker grew the cave.