Walter Scott

On his bold visage middle age Had slightly pressed its signet sage, Yet had not quenched the open truth And fiery vehemence of youth; Forward and frolic glee was there, The will to do, the soul to dare,

A foot more light, a step more true, Ne'er from the heath-flower dash'd the dew.

And ne'er did Grecian chisel trace A Nymph, a Naiad, or a Grace Of finer form or lovelier face.

With head upraised, and look intent, And eye and ear attentive bent, And locks flung back, and lips apart, Like monument of Grecian art, In listening mood, she seemed to stand, The guardian Naiad of the strand.

The stag at eve had drunk his fill, Where danced the moon on Monan's rill, And deep his midnight lair had made In lone Glenartney's hazel shade.

To all, to each, a fair good-night, And pleasing dreams, and slumbers light!

O, Woman! in our hours of ease, Uncertain, coy, and hard to please, And variable as the shade By the light quivering aspen made; When pain and anguish wring the brow, A ministering angel thou!

O, what a tangled web we weave, When first we practise to deceive!

And darest thou then To beard the lion in his den, The Douglas in his hall?

Oh, young Lochinvar is come out of the West, Through all the wide Border his steed was the best.

When Prussia hurried to the field, And snatch'd the spear, but left the shield.

When, musing on companions gone, We doubly feel ourselves alone.

Just at the age 'twixt boy and youth, When thought is speech, and speech is truth.

Stood for his country’s glory fast, And nail’d her colours to the mast!

That day of wrath, that dreadful day, When heaven and earth shall pass away, What power shall be the sinner's stay? How shall he meet that dreadful day?

O Caledonia! stern and wild, Meet nurse for a poetic child! Land of brown heath and shaggy wood, Land of the mountain and the flood!

True love's the gift which God has given To man alone beneath the heaven: It is not fantasy's hot fire, Whose wishes, soon as granted, fly; It liveth not in fierce desire, With dead desire it doth not die;

Call it not vain;—they do not err, Who say, that when the Poet dies, Mute Nature mourns her worshipper, And celebrates his obsequies.

For ne'er Was flattery lost on poet's ear: A simple race! they waste their toil For the vain tribute of a smile.

Along thy wild and willow'd shore.

Her blue eyes sought the west afar, For lovers love the western star.

In peace, Love tunes the shepherd's reed; In war, he mounts the warrior's steed; In halls, in gay attire is seen; In hamlets, dances on the green. Love rules the court, the camp, the grove, And men below, and saints above;

I cannot tell how the truth may be; I say the tale as 'twas said to me.

I was not always a man of woe.