I little thought, when first I tried Thy notes by lone Saint Mary's side, I found thee in the braken glen, I little thought that idle toy A maiden's youthful smiles had wove I know not if 'twas love or thee. Weened not my heart, when youth had flown Friendship would fade, or fortune frown; When pleasure, love, and mirth were past, That thou should'st prove my all at last! Jeered by conceit and lordly pride, With wayward fortune strove a while; My wild sensations all were gone, Long hast thou in the moorland lain, The russet weed of mountain gray No more shall round thy border play; Shall mar thy tones and measures wild. Harp of the Forest, thou shalt be Fair as the bud on forest tree! Sweet be thy strains, as those that swell Soft as the breeze of falling even, And purer than the dews of heaven. Of minstrel honours, now no more; Of bards, who sung in days of yore; Of ladies' smiles, of ladies' eyes; When wanes the circling year away, When scarcely smiles the doubtful day, Hast thou not heard, at midnight deep, And even shrunk from proffer bland On such ecstatic dream when brake The music of the midnight Wake, 'Scaped from a world of cares away, The dream dispelled, the music gone, Hast thou not, sighing, all alone, Proffered thy vows to Heaven, and then Blest the sweet Wake, and slept again? Then list, ye maidens, to my lay, Though old the tale, and past the day; Those Wakes, now played by minstrels poor, At midnight's darkest, chillest hour, Those humble Wakes, now scorned by all, Were first begun in courtly hall, When royal MARY, blithe of mood, Kept holiday at Holyrood. Scotland, involved in factious broils, Hoping that then her woes would cease, The Spring was past, the Summer gone; But scarce had Autumn's mellow hand That Scotland's Queen was on the sea. Swift spread the news o'er down and dale, Swift as the lively autumn gale; Away, away, it echoed still, O'er many a moor and Highland hill, Till rang each glen and verdant plain, |